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A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF 

PENNSYLVANIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT 

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 

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Contents 



I. Slavery in the Colony of Pennsylvania. 5 

II. Abolition of Slavery f t 

III. The Free People of Color z6 

IV. Negro Population Since the Civil War 5 2 

V. Occupation of Negroes 7o 

VI. Business Enterprises 3 2 

VII. Ownership of Property ]Q3 

VIII. . The Church and Secret Societies 1IO 

IX. Education. I2 

X. The Negro and Crime. I4 o 

XI. Poverty Among Negroes I59 

XII. Inter- Racial Contact and Social Progress. 166 

XIII. Conclusions j3 2 

XIV. Appendix 20 - 



The Negro In Pennsylvania 



SLAVERY IN THE COLONY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



When the Colony of Pennsylvania was founded by- 
William Penn, Negro slavery was a recognized institution 
in the New World. The Dutch and Swedes, who settled 
along the Delaware, had slaves. But whence these slaves 
came and how many they were, or what was their exact lo- 
cation, is not positively known. It is known, however, that 
as early as 1639, an offender, named Coinclesse, was sen- 
tenced by the authorities of Manhattan for wounding a sol- 
dier at Fort Amsterdam, to "serve along with blacks, to be 
sent by the first ship to South River" (The Delaware). 
And in 1677, one James Sunderlands, is said to have been a 
slaveholder in the Delaware neighborhood. 

When William Penn secured his charter and framed 
the laws for the government of his colony, he intended to 
give the greatest personal freedom to all who came to the 
new land. To The Free Society of Traders, who purchased 
some 20,000 acres of ground, Penn granted extensive privi- 
leges, and jurisdiction over their own land. In their articles 
of settlement is the following: "It (The Free Society of 
Traders) is a very unusual society ; for it is an absolutely 
free one and in a free country ; a society without oppression, 
wherein all may be concerned that will and yet have the 
same liberty of private traffic as though there were no so- 
ciety at all." In this quite liberal description Negroes were, 
however, not included ; for in the following paragraph, the 
society declared as a further inducement for colonists to 
come to the Pennsylvania country, "Black servants to be 

5 



The Ne£ro In Pennsylvania 



free at fourteen years, on giving the society two-thirds of 
what they can produce on land allotted to them by the so- 
ciety, with stocks and tools ; if they agree not to do this, to 
be servants until they do." Thus, at the very beginning, 
the founders of Pennsylvania sanctioned Xegro servitude, 
stating in very clear language the handicap under which 
Negroes must live and labor. 

The Perm Colony arrived in the country in 1682. 

Though there is no record of any of them owning slaves at 
this time, it is probable that slaves were early procured by 
many. James Claypoole, of England, on deciding to come 
to Pennsylvania in 1682, wrote as follows : "I have a great 
drawing on my mind to remove with my family thither, so 
that I am given up, if the Lord clears the way, to be gone 
by next spring. Advise me in thy next, what I might have 
two Negroes for that they might be fit for cutting down 
trees, building, plowing or any sort of labor that is requir- 
ed in the first planting of a country." In 1684, just two 
years after the founding of the colony, one Cornelius Bonn, 
is said to have had a Negro whom he "bought." In the 
same year, among the goods of William Pomfret, of Bucks 
County, which were levied on by Gilbert Wheeler was 
"one man" supposed to be a Negro slave. There is 
also evidence which seems to show that William Penn him- 
self approved of slavery, that he used slaves, and probably 
owned some. In his cash book, one "Dorcas," a colored 
woman, is mentioned by him. In a letter to James Harri- 
son, his steward, under date of August 25, 1685, he wrote 
from England : "I have sent a gardener by this ship, or 
he soon follows, with all requisites; a man of recommended 
great skill. Let him have what help he can, not less than 
two or three at any time; he will cast things into a proper 
posture. He has his passage paid, thirty pounds at three 
years, sixty acres of land and a month in the year to him- 



A Study In Economic History 



self not hindering my business, and he is to train two men 
and' a boy in the art. It were better that they were blacks 
for then, a man has them while they live." Two months 
later, October 4th, 1685, he wrote again: "The blacks of 
Captain Allen, I have as good as bought ; so part not with 
them without my order." There are other evidences that 
he had slaves, but none that he ever possessed a large num- 
ber of them at any one time. 

It seems therefore that after the settlers of Pennsyl- 
vania began the actual work of settlement, they fell some- 
what from the high ideals of human liberty as set forth by 
the Free Society of Traders, while they were still in Lon- 
don. Negroes were found to be useful in "cutting down 
trees, building, plowing, and any sort of labor that is requir- 
ed in the first planting of a country." Economic necessity 
thus forced upon the liberty-loving Pennsylvania commun- 
ity, human servitude, as it had also upon other colonies. 
And about 1700, slavery became a recognized institution in 

the Ouaker Colony. 

The Pennsylvania colonists procured their slaves 
chiefly from the West Indies and from the surrounding col- 
onies on the mainland of America. Very few, however, 
came direct from Africa. Slaves were sold for from forty 
to a hundred pounds sterling. In 1700 slaves were numer- 
ous enough to call for special attention from the Philadel- 
phia Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends. The sub- 
ject was brought up by no less a personage than William 
Penn himself, for "his mind had long been engaged for the 
benefit and welfare of the Negroes." Penn, with the con- 
sent of the Colonial Council, also recommended special leg- 
islation for Negroes. Slavery seemed to be taken as a mat- 
ter of course. Nothing is heard of the emancipation after 
fourteen years' service, provided for in the plans of the 
Free Society of Traders. In 1683, Penn wrote a long let- 



8 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

ter to the Free Society of Traders, making mention of the 
important things relating to the Colony but said nothing 
of Negroes. For half a century the trade in slaves increas- 
ed, not however without evoking some hostility from the 
Quakers and other anti-slavery colonists. 

Newspapers contained frequent advertisements con- 
cerning slaves. Indeed, half of the advertising matter of the 
American "Weekly Mercury, Pennsylvania's first news- 
paper, consisted of advertisements for the sale of Negroes, 
or for the apprehending of Negro slaves or other servants. 

Slavery reached its height in Pennsylvania between 
1750 and 1763 and from the latter date, began to decline. 
There are but few statistics of Negroes in the Colony ; and 
in the literature of the early times there are but few ref- 
erences from which to form a trustworthy estimate of the 
number of slaves. But from the legislation of the times, the 
increasing number of protests of the abolitionists and other 
references, it is probable that slaves must have existed in 
the Colony in considerable numbers. In 1775, 2,000 slaves 
were held in the beginning by all classes, but became more 
and more characteristic of the English, Welsh and Scotch 

Irish settlements and less of the German and Quaker set- 
tlements. 

On the whole it may be said that as compared with 
other colonies, the slavery which existed in Pennsylvania 
was mild. Yet there was a distinct status; first, on ac- 
count of race and religion, and secondly, due to the in- 
fluence of the general condition of slavery existing in the 
Colonies around Pennsylvania. The Constitution of 1682 
recognized the status of the black servant as differing from 
that of the white servant in that the former was a servant 
for at least 14 years, while there was no specified time for 
the servitude of the white servant — the time being usually 
from four to six years. In the second place, the black ser- 



A Study In Economic History 



vant might be freed, not however to become an independent 
member of the community but to remain under the patron- 
age of some person , receiving tools, stocks, etc., from him 
and returning therefor, two-thirds of his produce. If the 
black servant refused this freedom he became a servant for 
life. On the contrary, the white servant, on working out 
his time, came into possession of a number of acres of land 
and became thereafter an independent member of the col- 
ony. 

The first special legislative action with regard to Ne- 
groes in Pennsylvania was a law passed by the City Coun- 
cil of Philadelphia, in 1693 "against tumultuous gatherings 
of Negroes of the old town of Philadelphia on the first day 
of the week." By this law, constables or others were au- 
thorized "to take up Negroes, male or female, whom they 
should find gadding abroad, on the first day of the week, 
without a ticket from their master or mistress, or not in 
their company, to carry them to jail and there to cause 
them to remain that night and without meat or drink, or 
to cause them to be whipped publicly." In 1700, seven 
years later, colonial legislation looking toward separate 
treatment of blacks and whites was suggested by William 
Penn himself. This was the beginning of Pennsylvania's 
"Black Code." There were three laws proposed, two of 
which were enacted. The first and most important was 
"An Act for the Trial of Negroes," which was passed 
November 27, 1700. This Act stated that "some difficul- 
ties have arisen within this province and territory about 
the manner of trial and punishment of Negroes committing 
murder, manslaughter, buggery, burglary, rape, attempted 
rape, sodomy." It remained in force until 1705 when it was 
repealed by the law of January 12, 1705-6. The new law 
provided life imprisonment and thirty-nine lashes every 
three months during the first year of such imprisonment 



10 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

for any Xegro convicted of sodomy or buggery ; an at- 
tempt at rape or robbery of more than five pounds, sterling, 
made him liable to branding with a letter "R," or "T," 
and exportation. This act remained in force until slavery 
was abolished in 1780. In 1765, however, another "Act for 
the Trial of Negroes" was passed. This act provided that 
the exportation of the Xegro convicted of robbery or rape, 
be at the expense of the master and also that the Negro 
convicted should "never return on pain of death." 

The other act, suggested by William Penn and which 
was enacted by the colonial legislature, was for the "Better 
Regulation of Servants in the Province," etc., which was 
passed November 27, 1700. A third law was also proposed 
by him to regulate marriage among slaves but did not pass. 

According to an act passed August 26, 1721, persons 
were prohibited from selling liquor to Negroes. The prin- 
cipal law in Pennsylvania's "Black Code" was that passed 
March 26, 1725-26, entitled "An Act for the better regula- 
tion of Negroes in this Province," which defined the status 
of the Negro not only as a slave but as a free man. This 
legislation provided for compensating the owner in case a 
slave was executed for crime; restricted the free Negroes 
and compelled them to work, forbade inter-race marriage, 
required slaves away from home to have passes and for- 
bade the keeping or hiding of slaves without knowledge 
and consent of their masters. 

The laws of the colonies discriminated very sharply 
between a Negro and a white person. The discrimination 
originating, perhaps, in an attempt to place the slave at the 
same time in two separate categories, that of a rational and 
responsible human being and that of property. Although 
the Negro slave was property, he was not to be treated as 
a horse or a cow, but as a person ; still not as a white per- 
son. Later there were distinctions made between the slave 



A Study In Economic History 1 1 

and the free Negro, and between the free Negro and the 
white person. In the latter case, although the free Negro 
was no longer considered property, he was considered dis- 
tinctly different from white persons. 

Some of the discriminations were as follows ; As to 
morals, it seemed to be taken for granted that the Negro 
had few and was only punishable for moral offences in 
which whites were involved. For adultery, a white person 
was imprisoned one year and fined fifty pounds and the in- 
jured party allowed to divorce, with heavier penalties for 
later offences. For adultery or fornication between Ne- 
groes, even free Negroes, there does not seem to have been 
any punishment whatever, but if a Negro and a white per- 
son were involved, the Negro was to be sold as a servant 
for seven years. The law against inter-race marriage pro- 
vided that a white person, who may be convicted of such 
offence, shall be fined thirty pounds or suffer the penalty 
of being sold as a servant for seven years. But for a free 
Negro, there was no alternative but to become a slave for 
life. For rape a white man was publicly whipped, not ex- 
ceeding thirty-one lashes and given seven years imprison- 
ment. If unmarried, he forfeited all his estate ; if married, 
he forfeited a third of his estate. For the second offence 
he was ostracised and branded with 'R" on his forehead. 
For the same crime by a Negro with "any white woman 
or maid" the black offender suffered death ; and for at- 
tempted rape, a Negro was castrated. There does not 
seem to be any punishment for the rape of a Negro woman, 
whether the offender be white or black. Negroes were 
punished by death for murder, manslaughter, buggery, bur- 
glary and rape. Whites were so punished only for murder 
in the first degree. For sodomy or buggery a white man 
was imprisoned for life and whipped during the first year. 
Strict laws were made against Negroes drinking or remain- 



12 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

ing out later than nine o'clock at night or wandering 
through the country or competing with white men, etc. 
Whites were tried by a jury of their peers of freeholders, 
but Negroes by two justices and six freeholders. For pun- 
ishment, whites were generally fined or imprisoned; Ne- 
groes were generally whipped. The law against trafficing 
with servants provided for a fine for the white master, a 
term of servitude for the white servant, but "if the servant 
be black he shall be severely whipped.'' For firing a gun 
or other arms, making or selling fireworks, in Philadelphia, 
the fine was five shillings or two days' imprisonment, but 
if such offender be a Negro or Indian slave, instead of im- 
prisonment, he was publicly whipped. 

So far as the laws of the colony go, there is evidence 
that Pennsylvania took but little legal notice of the fact 
that Negroes might be morally improved. There were laws 
on the statute books of the colony and state for nearly a 
hundred years, which were calculated only to inspire Ne- 
groes with fear, to discourage individual initiative on their 
part, to emphasize the difference between whites and blacks, 
to create a status of inferiority for the Negro, the effect 
of which was to put even the free Negro beneath the white 
servant. Although every protection was thrown around 
white women, there was no hint of protection of Negro 
women against white men or against men of their own race. 
So far as the laws of Pennsylvania were concerned the 
Negro woman was not recognized to have any virtue. The 
one effort made by William Perm, in 1700, to give moral 
standing to the Negroes by regulating marriage among 
them, was defeated in the Assembly and there the matter 
rested for many years. The beginning of the Negro race in 
this State was under a moral handicap as well as an eco- 
nomic handicap. 



A Study In Economic History 13 



THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 



Notwithstanding the fact that Pennsylvania drew sharp 
lines between Negroes and whites, and by her laws laid 
the foundation for a black caste and a white caste, yet to 
the people of this State is due much credit for instituting 
many of the most fruitful efforts against the slave system. 
This contradictory position may be accounted for by two 
things : first, to the favorable attitude of the British gov- 
ernment regarding slavery in its colonies, and second, to the 
contrary attitude represented chiefly by the Quakers. In 
this contradictory position we see in bold relief the struggle 
between the economic and moral elements of our early 
colonial society. It was presumed economic necessity 
which caused slavery to take root and to flourish in the 
Colony of Pennsylvania. The moral sense of the colony, 
however, was never entirely crushed by its economic needs. 
Long before the economic advantage of free as against 
slave labor was clearly demonstrated, in this colony, for 
purely moral and religious reasons, vigorous protests against 
slavery were published. Pennsylvania might well be called 
the parent of the movement for the abolition of Negro 
slavery. For not only was the first protest against slave 
trade in this country made here, but here the underground 
railroad was probably started; here the first abolition society 
was formed ; here the first anti-slavery society was organ- 
ized ; here was the first trial of gradual abolition by law, and 
here numerous pioneer movements for the emancipation 
of the slaves and the betterment of the condition of the 
freedmen found fertile soil and vigorous growth. 

There were possibly three distinct factors which 
brought about the abolition of slavery in the colony. The 



14 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 

first of these was religious sentiment, represented chiefly 
by the Quakers, who based their opposition to slavery on 
the principle of brotherhood as taught by Jesus. They 
made no excuse or allowance for economic needs and often 
found themselves in direct opposition to the opinion of 
the times. The first recorded protest against slavery in 
America was that by the German Friends of Germantown, 
near Philadelphia, in 1688, six years after the founding of 
the Pennsylvania Colony. These Germans, a simple God- 
fearing, liberty-loving people, were quick to see the utter 
incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. For them, the 
economic motive was not the ruling motive of life. The 
original document containing the protest was lost and was 
not discovered until 1846, when Nathan Kite found and 
published it in "The Friend," the organ of the Society of 
Friends. These Friends considered the Negroes as men 
and brethren with a right of freedom to their bodies. They 
concluded their protest with this exhortation, "Now con- 
sider well this thing, (slavery) if it is good or bad. And 
in case you find it to be good to handle these blacks in that 
manner, we desire and require you hereby, lovingly, that 
you may inform us herein what at this time never was 
done, viz: That Christians have such liberty so to do. To 
the end, we may be satisfied and satisfy likewise, our good 
friends and acquaintances in our native country, that men 
should be handled so in Pennsylvania." 

This protest was drawn up at a meeting held in Ger- 
mantown February 18, 1688. The action of this and other 
meetings showed that the protest was far in advance of 
the times. The Monthly Meeting declared that the matter 
was "so weighty" that it was "not expedient" to be handled 
there. They referred it to the Quarterly Meeting which 
also refused to take a definite stand regarding it, de- 
claring that it was "a thing too great in weight for this 



A Study In Economic History 15 

meeting to determine." The Yearly Meeting at Philadel- 
phia found itself in the same predicament and refused to 
take action. At this time, it seems that not even the Friends 
as a body were strong enough to take a decided stand 
against slavery; for the slaves seemed necessary, to the 
majority of them, for the development of the new country. 
The next protest was that which George Keith, a Quaker, 
made at a meeting of Friends in Philadelphia about 1693. 
In 1696, "a minute of advice" was sent by the Yearly Meet- 
ing cautioning Friends as follows : "Whereas, several pa- 
pers have been read relating to the keeping and bringing 
in of Negroes; which being duly considered it is the advice 
of this meeting that the Friends be careful not to encour- 
age the bringing of any more Negroes and that such as 
have Negroes, be careful to bring them to meetings, have 
meetings with them in their families and restrain them from 
loose and lewd living as much as in them lies and from 
rambling abroad on first days and other times." William 
Penn brought to the attention of the Philadelphia Monthly 
Meeting the matter of Negroes and that meeting put it on 
record, "That Friends ought to be very careful in discharg- 
ing good conscience towards them in all respects, but much 
more especially for the good of their souls." In 1715, the 
Yearly Meeting went on record against the importation of 
slaves declaring, "If any Friends are concerned in the im- 
portation of Negroes let them be dealt with and advised 
to avoid that practice." In 1716, the Quarterly Meeting at 
Chester tried to commit the Friends against buying and 
selling slaves, but without success. Nothing more practi- 
cal was done until 1729, when the Chester Meeting again 
urged against Friends dealing in slaves; this after a year, 
was adopted as the advice by the Yearly Meeting of 1730, 
and was repeated from time to time. In 1743 a special 



16 The Neg.ro In Pennsylvatiia 

query was adopted, "Do Friends observe the advice of the 
Yearly Meeting not to encourage the Importation of Ne- 
groes, nor to buy them after imported?" In 1754, a very 
urgent letter was circulated among the Friends by the 
Yearly Meeting advising against trading in slaves. In 
1755 another step was made; the disciplinary question 
was asked, "Are Friends clear of importing or buying Ne- 
groes, and do they use those well that they are possessed 
of by inheritance or otherwise, endeavoring to train them 
up in the principles of the Christian religion?" In 1755, 
the Yearly .Meeting also decided to disown all members 
of the Society who traded in Negroes. In 1766, it was de- 
cided to disown all those members who did not manumit 
their slaves. 

This steady development in the attitude of Friends 
seems almost ideal, but it is always easier to pass resolu- 
tions than to act. The resolution to disown slave traders 
in 1755 was not followed by a wholesale disowning, though 
some Quakers did engage in the trade. After 1758, there 
were many who manumitted their slaves, but quite a large 
number still retained them, which led to the adoption of 
the severe measures in 1776. But even this could not be 
vigorously enforced. Some were holding slaves two years 
after the resolution of 1776. In 1777. the Friends Quar- 
terly Meeting in Bucks County, reported that some of their 
number had liberated their slaves, but that others still per- 
sisted in holding them. The following year several mem- 
bers in Philadelphia were disowned for holding slaves. In 
this year also, Sarah Crowden and Joseph Lovett, members 
df the Falls Meeting, Bucks County, were dealt with for 
refusing to free their Negroes. As late as the registra- 
tion of slaves in Bucks County, in 1782, slaves were re- 
tained bv Quakers. 



A Study In Economic History 11 



Some difficulties in the way of manumission often made 
it hard for persons of moderate means to free their slaves. 
Because a certain type of slaveholders, in some of the colo- 
nies manumitted the old and infirm slaves, who afterward 
became a burden upon the colony, several colonies had at- 
tempted to protect themselves by requiring the former mas- 
ter to give security for his manumitted slave, in case the 
latter should become a public charge. Pennsylvania 
adopted such a law in 1726. The difficulty under which 
one labored who desired to manumit his slaves may be 
illustrated by the following instance in Bucks County : 

'Thomas Lancaster, Sr., a member of the Plymouth 
Meeting and the owner of a farm of 200 acres in White- 
marsh, having been prevailed upon by the Society, after 
several years entreaty, at length consented." The follow- 
ing were the conditions imposed upon him to carry out 
this measure legally, according to the royal requirements: 
"At a General Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, held 
for the city and county of Philadelphia. 6th of June, A. D., 
1774, Thomas Lancaster of Whitemarsh township, in this 
county, yoeman, acknowledges himself to be held and 
firmly bound unto our sovereign lord, the King, in the 
sum of thirty pounds lawful money of Pennsylvania, to be 
levied on his goods, chattels, lands and tenements, to the 
use of our said lord, the King." "That, whereas, the said 
Thomas Lancaster hath manumitted and set free from 
slavery a certain Negro man named Cato, aged about forty- 
six years, and if the said Thomas Lancaster, his executors 
and administrators, shall do well and truly hold and keep 
harmless and indemnified the Overseers of the Bar, of the 
City and County of Philadelphia, respectively from all 
costs, charges and incumbrances whatsoever, which shall 
or may happen to accrue in case the said Negro man shall 

2 



18 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

be sick or otherwise rendered incapable of supporting him- 
self; then the above obligation to be void, otherwise to be 
and remain in full force and virtue, agreeable to an Act of 
Assembly in such cases made and provided." 

In time, economic necessity which helped to establish 
slavery, also helped to destroy it. In the first few years, 
while the Negroes were profitable for pioneer work, the 
moral and religious arguments such as were advanced 
by the German friends, Lay and Sandiford, and others ap- 
parently fell on deaf ears. Men devoted themselves in reli- 
gion to other matters not so intimately associated with 
their economic needs. But as years passed economic ne- 
cessity did not favor an extensive system of slavery in 
Pennsylvania such as existed in the South. Economic con- 
ditions reinforced the religious and moral forces and has- 
tened the death of slavery, as a system, in Pennsylvania. 
The quality of work which the colonists had for slave labor 
was such as tended ultimately to discourage the devel- 
opment of a great slave system. In the early days, there 
was great demand for slaves to do the heavy pioneer work 
of clearing the forests, but as there was less and less of 
this to do, and as the easy terms upon which white ser- 
vants could be induced to come to the colony, caused the 
number of white immigrants to increase, the actual demand 
for Negro workers decreased. For white servants were a 
better investment than Negro slaves. A white servant 
could be secured for four or five years for the cost of his 
transportation from Europe, while a Negro cost consider- 
ably more. 

The colonist kept the white servants during these four 
or five years, and at the end of this period his responsibility 
ended. But with the Negro slave, his responsibility did 
not end until the death of the Negro. For even if he manu- 



A Study In Economic History 19 



mitted the Negro slave, he must still be responsible for 
him in case of sickness or extreme poverty. This, added 
to the fact that the white workmen were chiefly voluntary 
immigrants, were generally more intelligent than the slave, 
often spoke the same language as their employers, were of 
their race and religion, and above all, possessed what the 
Negro slave because of his servitude, could not possess, 
ambition to make their way in the new country — these 
things made the indentured servant or the redemptioner, 
far more profitable to the Pennsylvania colonists, after the 
first years of rough pioneer work were past, than the 
Negro slave. As white servants increased, slave labor be- 
came less and less profitable and the economists were the 
more and more in favor of a restriction on slavery. 

The opposition of free labor to slave labor took definite 
form in the shape of a protest of white mechanics and day 
laborers against the practice of masters hiring out their 
slaves. The protest stated "That the practice of blacks 
being employed was a great disadvantage to them who 
had emigrated from Europe for the purpose of obtaining a 
livelihood; that they were poor and honest; they therefore 
hoped a law would be prepared for the prevention of the 
employment of blacks." In accordance with this the Gen- 
eral Assembly put itself on record against the principle 
of masters hiring out their slaves, declaring that the prin- 
ciple was "dangerous and injurious to the republic and not 
to be sanctioned." And four years later, the legislature 
forbade masters to permit their Negro slaves from hiring 
their time. Up to 1726, the objection from the economic 
side was not as to slavery as a system, but as to the kind 
of labor slaves should do. It seems to be conceded that a 
slave should do the work of his own master but not, as 
in the early days, the work of others. This should be re- 



20 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



served for free laborers. This restriction was, however, a 
blow to the system, for it removed the temptation to in- 
crease the number of slaves beyond one's personal needs. 
It also tended to make slave labor more costly than free 
labor. For the fact that the slave must be kept the whole 
year and fed and clothed, without the privilege of being 
hired out, made him a burden in dull times. 

The nature of the employments of the colony made 
slavery even less profitable as a permanent system. The 
work of the colony needed intelligence. There were no 
occupations, such as extensive cotton or tobacco growing, 
in which a large number of ignorant laborers could be used 
with profit. What farming was done must be intensive 
rather than extensive and could be carried on best by free 
labor. One person could not therefore keep a large num- 
ber of slaves. The chief work which the slaves did was to 
help at gardening and in domestic service. Now and then 
they helped in skilled mechanical occupations. There is 
mention at a very early time of Negro blacksmiths. But the 
very nature of these employments which needed only a few 
persons, led to the restriction of slavery. It may be also 
that the climate had much to do with the death of slavery 
in the state. Though not so cold as New England, the 
winter is just cold enough and long enough to differentiate 
it from Virginia and other states further South. There is 
snow on the ground the greater part of the winter. The 
time for growth of agricultural products is comparatively 
short. But the climate had, possibly, another important 
influence. Although there are no serious complaints as to 
the death and sickness of the Negroes, it might be inferred 
that their sick and death rates were quite high, making 
it difficult for them to rear many healthy children. For 
most of the Negroes or their parents came from the west 



A Smdy In Economic History 21 



coast of Africa, between Senegal and the Congo, which is 
a part of the Torrid Zone, from ten degrees below to fifteen 
degrees above the Equator. Here, they had never known 
snow or cold climate. Many of those who came to Penn- 
sylvania were born in Africa, or were the children and 
grandchildren of native Africans. In coming to Pennsyl- 
vania, they came to the North Temperate Zone, a distance 
from thirty to forty-five degrees. In making this migra- 
tion, the Negroes were among the first peoples of the Tor- 
rid Zone to have done so successfully in historical times. 
But it took generations to adapt themselves, and during 
these first years, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they 
suffered from a very heavy death rate; all of which tended 
to make slavery less and less profitable. 

Many of the most thoughtful men of the times saw that 
slavery was not only morally wrong but economically un- 
profitable and set themselves against it. Benjamin Frank- 
lin became a member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 
and was its president at one time. Writing of the labor of 
slaves, he thus states the case in his characteristically prac- 
tical way: "It is an ill-grounded opinion, that by the labor 
of slaves, America may possibly vie in cheapness with Bri- 
tain. The labor of slaves can never be so cheap as the labor 
of workingmen in Britain. Any one may compute it. In- 
terest is in the colonies from 6 to 10 per cent. Slaves, one 
with another, cost thirty pounds sterling per head. Reckon 
then the interest on the first purchase of a slave, the insur- 
ance or risk of his life ; his clothing and diet, expense in his 
sickness and loss of time, loss by neglect of business (ne- 
glect is natural to a man who is not to be benefited by his 
own care or diligence), expense of a driver to keep him at 
work and his pilfering from time to time, almost every slave 
being a natural thief, and compare the whole amount with 



22 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

the wages of a manufacturer of iron or wool in England, 
you will see that labor is much cheaper there than it ever 
can be by the Negroes here." 

A third obstacle to the development of slavery in Penn- 
sylvania was the spirit of independence and the enthusiasm 
for the equality of all men, a spirit much akin indeed to the 
religious sentiment above referred to, which as one of the 
foundation stones of the philosophy of the times, came as 
a climax to the revival of learning. Toward the end of the 
eighteenth century men were taken with a positive and 
rather sudden zeal for humanity, for freedom, equality and 
fraternity. In France, the practical result of this was the 
revolt against monarchy, known as the French Revolution. 
In America, the result was a revolt against foreign rule and 
an assertion of political independence. The American 
Declaration of Independence declared, "all men are created 
equal ;" and many of the signers of that document believed 
that this freedom and equality ought to extend to black as 
well as white men. Then, too, the part that Negroes took 
in the Revolutionary War made a profound impression on 
the minds of many. In Pennsylvania and in the North, 
economic conditions were such that this spirit of liberty 
could have its full effect so far as the Negroes' bodily free- 
dom was concerned. 

The legislative attempt to restrict slavery and the slave 
trade represents a politico-economic movement in which the 
politics was dominated by economic necessity. At first, the 
legislative attempt had but little success. One reason for 
this was, that the Legislature or General Council of Penn- 
sylvania had but little power in itself. Its laws had to pass 
for review before the English Government and at that time 
it was thought to be advantageous to England to push the 
slave trade as far as possible. By the treaty of Utrecht, the 
British secured privileges which stimulated the trade more 



A Study In Economic History 23 

than ever before. Up to the time of the Revolutionary 
War, we have but one act in Pennsylvania, which was de- 
signed to prohibit the importation of slaves outright. But 
this act, which was entitled, "An act to prevent the impor- 
tation of Negroes and Indians into this province," was in- 
spired by the fear of Negroes more than the love of free- 
dom. It was passed June 7, 1712 and was repealed Febru- 
ary 20, 1713, and was never enforced. In this same year, 
1712, William Southbe, an ardent abolitionist, applied to 
the Pennsylvania Assembly for a declaration of freedom to 
all Negroes. To this, the Assembly resolved that it was 
neither practical nor convenient to set them at liberty. A 
series of duty acts was enacted between 1700 and 1780 
which were designed more for the raising of revenue than 
for prohibiting the slave trade. The first of these passed 
November 27, 1700, was entitled, "An act for granting an 
impost upon wines, rum, beer, ale, cider, etc., imported, re- 
torted and sold in this province and territories." Section 2, 
provided "for every Negro, male or female, imported, if 
above sixteen, twenty shillings ; for every Negro under the 
age of sixteen, six shillings." Six years later, January 12, 
1706, the duty was raised to forty shillings for each slave 
except those who had lived two years in this country. In 
1 710, Section 28 of another act confirmed the duty of forty 
shillings of the act of 1706 and made it general for all im- 
ported Negroes. Within two months of this last act, came 
another act of February 28, 171 1, under the same title, "An 
impost act, laying a duty on Negroes, etc.," which affirmed 
the duty of forty shillings on Negroes not imported for the 
use of the importer. This duty was in force until February 
20, 1713-1714, when it was repealed by a new "act for laying 
a duty on Negroes imported into this province," which plac- 
ed the duty at five pounds, and made the restriction that the 



24 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

slaves of persons immigrating to the colony must not be 
sold for twelve months. This was repealed July 21, 1719. 
There were other acts laying duties and confirming previ- 
ous acts. February 22, 1717-18, an act was passed continu- 
ing the duty of five pounds, but providing that the slaves 
of immigrants should be entered free, if they be not sold 
for sixteen months. This act was continued by an act Feb- 
ruary 24, 1725-26, and that in turn by an act May 12, 1722, 
and again on March 5, 1725-1726, this time providing an ad- 
ditional five pounds to the duty. None of these acts was ever 
considered by the Crown, and all were allowed to become 
laws merely by the lapse of time. The last of this series 
was in 1729, when the duty was fixed at two pounds. After 
1729 there were no more "Duty Acts" in Pennsylvania for 
thirty-two years until March 14, 1761, when, "An act for 
the laying of a duty on Negro and Mulatto slaves, etc." was 
passed. A duty of ten pounds was again provided for. 
This was supplemented the next month, and continued to 
February 20, 1768. The last act of the Colonial Govern- 
ment was, "An act for making perpetual of the acts en- 
titled, 'An act for the laying of a duty on Negro and Mulat- 
to slaves imported into this province, etc' " This act in- 
creased the duty to twenty pounds and remained in force 
until the act of gradual abolition in 1780. That there was 
not much change when the English rule ceased is shown 
by an act passed by the Legislature September 7, 1778. to 
appoint an official to collect the duties accrued since July 
4, 1776. At best, the legislative attempt was only feeble 
and was more for the purpose of increasing the revenue of 
the colony than diminishing the slave trade. 

As late as 1775, a bill to prohibit the importation of Ne- 
gro slaves was vetoed by the Colonial Governor. But the 
spirit of equality and independence brought forth by the 



A Study In Economic History 25 



Revolution showed itself in 1777, one year after the signing 
of the Declaration of Independence, when George Bryan, a 
representative in the Pennsylvania Assembly, introduced a 
bill to manumit all Negro infants. This bill failing' to be 
passed, the next year, the author, being then Governor of 
the State, called attention to the same in his annual mes- 
sage November 9, 1778. And again, February 5, 1779, 
President Reid, of the Assembly, called attention to the 
subject in his message to the Pennsylvania House of Rep- 
resentatives; and on March 1, 1780, the "Act for the grad- 
ual abolition of slavery" was passed and Pennsylvania be- 
came forever a free State. It provided that those already 
slaves, should remain so to their death but that no chil- 
dren thereafter born within the State should be held as 
slaves for life, but in order that the economic change might 
not be too sudden, children born in the State might be held 
as servants until twenty-eight years of age. It prohibited 
the importation of slaves, with minor exceptions and abol- 
ished the duty acts of 1761 and 1763. It also abolished the 
act "For the trial of Negroes," passed 1705-6, and thus put 
Negro criminals on the same basis as whites. 

One cannot read the act of gradual abolition of slavery 
without profound respect for those who drafted and passed 
it. The preamble shows how great was the influence of the 
"spirit of liberty" in combining with the religious and eco- 
nomic factors in bringing about its passage. 

There were possibly not over 5000 Negro slaves in the 
State when the act of gradual abolition was passed and they 
were but a small proportion of the entire Negro popula- 
tion of the State. There is not much evidence as to the 
immediate effect of emancipation. There was no cataclysm. 
In an orderly way, Negro slaves gradually assumed the po- 
sition of Negro servants, to eventually become free citi- 



26 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

zens. Some difficulties, however, arose over the interpre- 
tation of the act of March I, 1760, and March 29, 1788, the 
Assembly passed an additional explanatory act, "in or- 
der to prevent many evils and abuses arising from ill-dis- 
posed persons availing themselves of certain defects in the 
act for the gradual abolition of slavery." This provided 
that all slaves brought into the State by persons, intending 
to reside therein, should be free; that slaves or servants for 
a term of years must not be removed from the State with- 
out their written consent, certified by two Justices, under 
penalty of seventy-five pounds. It reiterated that all chil- 
dren born in the State and liable to service for twenty-eight 
years must be registered. It provided against the separa- 
tion of husbands and wives and of children from their par- 
ents without their consent, under penalty of fifty pounds. 
It positively forbade trading in slaves or equipping vessels 
for the slave trade under penalty of a thousand pounds. It 
forbade kidnapping under penalty of a hundred pounds 
and provided that the law abolishing slavery be read twice 
at each term of court. 

In accordance with these two acts, slavery gradually 
disappeared. According to the United States Census of 
1790, there were 3737 slaves in Pennsylvania; in 1800 there 
were 1706; in 1810, there were 795; in 1820, there were 211 ; 
in 1830, there were 386, and in 1840, slavery had finally dis- 
appeared from the State. 

THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 



Just when Negroes first became free in Pennsylvania 
is not known. If the original design of the Free Society of 



A Study In Economic History 21 



Traders to liberate Negroes after fourteen years of service, 
was carried out, there must have been free Negroes in 
Pennsylvania as early as 1696. The first case definitely 
known, however, was in 1701, when Lydia Wade, the wid- 
ow of Robert Wade, of Delaware County, manumitted her 
slaves by her will dated "30, 4th mo., 1701," probated Au- 
gust 8, 1701, and in which was stated, "16 ly, my will is that 
my Negroes, John, and Jane, his wife, shall be set free one 
month after my decease. 17 ly, my will is, that my Negro 
child called Jane, shall be set free after it has lived with my 
Negro John twelve years and after that with my kinsman, 
John Wade, five years." William Penn's will, made during 
the same year, provided for the emancipation of his slaves, 
but in his last will there is no mention of slaves. It is pos- 
sible, therefore, that his slaves had been freed or otherwise 
disposed of. Janney in his "Life of Penn," says that the 
wishes of Penn were not fully carried out and gives as evi- 
dence a letter written by James Logan, Penn's secretary, 
to whom he left the matter of the slaves, to Hannah Penn, 
dated nth of 3rd month, 1721. 

Manumission by will was the chief method of granting 
freedom to Negroes and became more and more popular 
and as a result the class of free people increased gradually. 
Many, especially among the Quakers, had not reconciled 
themselves to perpetual slavery, and after they had had the 
service of their slaves for a term of years, set them free. 
William Bunson, one of the early settlers of Columbia, 
brought a number of slaves with him from Chester in 1727. 
When he died in 1746, he manumitted them. The descend- 
ants of the Barbers, among the first settlers of Columbia, 
"gradually quit owning slaves." In 1805, Sally Bell, a 
Quaker, manumitted between seventy-five and a hundred 
slaves. Now and then, the slaves were given a start in life 



28 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



by a donation of money or other wealth by their former 
masters. For example, in 1742, Jeremiah Longshore, of 
Bucks County, who possessed thirty or forty slaves, freed 
them by will, giving each of them ten pounds. 

There were, however, other sources of freedom for Ne- 
groes. Many slaves gained their freedom by running away 
from their masters. The freedom thus procured, was a 
precarious and often temporary kind. Escaped slaves who 
were caught were frequently returned to their masters. It 
was not until the nineteenth century, when Pennsylvania 
had become a free State and considerable anti-slavery senti- 
ment had developed, that runaway slaves could live within 
the State in anything like security. Yet there were many 
who ran away and thus secured freedom. The papers of 
the early times contained many advertisements for run- 
away slaves, often giving minute descriptions of them and 
offering rewards for their return. On account of the fre- 
quency of the running away, there soon developed through- 
out the colonies, special laws for the apprehension of Ne- 
groes. Any Negro found wandering abroad could be ar- 
rested. When a Negro was arrested it was his burden to 
prove his freedom. 

There were also cases of manumission during the life 
of the owner, generally after his slaves or slave had ren- 
dered him long and profitable service. In the pioneer 
period, there were but few cases of this sort, owing to the 
scarcity of labor. Indeed, those who had promised to free 
their slaves after fourteen years' service, have left no record 
of living up to the promise. 

During the Revolutionary War, freedom was given to 
Negroes who bore arms and who escaped from the British. 
There were also a few who hired out their extra time and 
thus gained their freedom, though hiring out, was early for- 



A Study In Economic History 29 



bidden by law. There were also those who were brought 
into the state and liberated. This was, however, during 
the early part of the nineteenth century very largely aftei 
Pennsylvania ha J become a free State and the surrounding 
slave States of Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and others, 
had laws which were very harsh respecting the manumis- 
sion of slaves and the residence of manumitted Negroes. 
In some of these States it was illegal for free Negroes to re- 
side. Before the end of the Revolutionary War, a law was 
passed by the North Carolina General Assembly to appre- 
hend and resell freed Negroes, and several years later, a 
bill was presented to the Tennessee Legislature to expel 
all free Negroes from the State. Especially after the Afri- 
can colonization agitation began, the presence of the free 
Negroes among the slaves in the South became obnoxious, 
and often masters were permitted to manumit their slaves 
only on condition of sending them out of the State. Thus, 
one Israel Bacon, of Henrico County, Virginia, manumitted 
fifty-six slaves who were finally brought to Columbia, 
Pennsylvania, and settled in 1819. Two years later, about 
a hundred manumitted Negroes from Hanover County 
were settled in the same place. In Virginia and North 
Carolina, manumission societies, fostered chiefly by Quak- 
ers, were largely interested in sending Negroes out of the 
slave States into the free States. As early as 1740, there was 
correspondence between the Yearly Meeting of these two 
Southern colonies, and in 1776 the Eastern Quarterly 
Meeting of North Carolina advised the manumission of 
slaves. In 1814 more than forty Negroes were sent to 
Pennsylvania by the North Carolina Quakers, and from 
year to year, others were sent. Smaller numbers came 
from other States and counties and settled in different parts 
of Pennsylvania. In 1790 there were 6537 free persons of 



30 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

color out of a total of 10,274 colored people, and in 1800 
there were more than twice as many; 14,564 of the 16,270 
Negroes being free. 

Prior to the year 1780, the free Negro had a distinctly 
lower legal and social status than the white, though not so 
low as that of the slave. The movement of the free Negroes 
was restricted, congregating by themselves was limited, 
their rights before the courts were but scantily recognized. 
Few in number and shut out as they were by the common 
society, it is but reasonable to suppose that they lagged be- 
hind the rest of their environment. The original reason 
for their presence in the State was to serve. When their 
servitude was over, they occupied an embarrassing position. 
In the preamble to the Third Section to the Act of 1725-26 
it was declared that, "Free Negroes are an idle and slothful 
people, and often prove burdensome to the neighborhood 
and afford ill example to other Negroes." 

In 1790 the Constitution of the State gave the right of 
elective franchise to all male citizens of the State twenty- 
one years of age, making no color distinctions. Whether 
or not Negroes voted before 1790, cannot be ascertained. 
But it is posssible that some of them voted and that the 
purpose of the attempt to introduce the word "white" was 
not only to provide for a probable future contingency, but 
to make an end of what some thought a civic evil. 

The first attempt at anything like independent eco- 
nomic organization among the Negroes was the Free Afri- 
can Society, which was organized in 1787 for the purpose 
of looking after the sick and poor among them. This at- 
tempt became of great importance in the early history of 
Negroes of this part of the country. The following ex- 
cerpts from the Constitution and By-Laws will illustrate 
its character: 



A Study In Economic History 31 

Preamble of the Free African Society, "Philadelphia, 
12th, 4th month, 1787. Whereas, Absalom Jones and 
Richard Allen, two men of the African race, who for their 
religious life and conversation, have obtained a good re- 
port among men, these persons, from a love to the people 
of their complexion, whom they behold with sorrow, be- 
cause of their irreligious and uncivilized state, often com- 
muned together upon this painful subject, in order to form 
some kind of religious society, but there being too few un- 
der like concern and those who were, were different in their 
religious sentiments; with these circumstances, they labor- 
ed for some time, till it was proposed, after a serious commu- 
nication of sentiments, that a society should be formed, 
without regard to religious tenets, provided the persons 
lived an orderly and sober life, in order to support one an- 
other in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and 
fatherless children. 

"Articles. (17th, 5th mo., 1787.) We, the free Afri- 
cans and their descendants of the City of Philadelphia, in 
the State of Pennsylvania or elsewhere, do unanimously 
agree, for the benefit of each other, to advance one shilling 
in silver, Pennsylvania currency, monthly and after one 
year's subscription from the date hereof then to hand forth 
to the needy of this society, if it should require, the sum of 
three shillings and nine pence per week of said money; 
provided, this necessity is not brought on them by their 
own imprudence. And it is further agreed that no drunk- 
ard or disorderly person be admitted as a member, and if 
they should prove disorderly after having been received, 
the said disorderly person shall be disjoined from us, if 
there is not an amendment, by being informed by two of 
the members, without having any of his subscription money 
returned to him. And if any should neglect paying his 



32 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

monthly subscription for three months and no sufficient 
reason appearing for such neglect, if he do not pay the 
whole at the next ensuing meeting, he shall be disjoined 
from us by being informed .by two of the members as an 
offender, without having any of his subscrpition money re- 
turned. Also if any persons neglect meeting every month, 
for every omission he shall pay 3 pence, except in case of 
sickness or other complaint that should require the assist- 
ance of the society, then, and in such a case, he shall be ex- 
empt from the fines and subscriptions during the said sick- 
ness. Also, we apprehend it to be just and reasonable, that 
the surviving widow of a deceased member should enjoy 
the benefits of this society as long as she remains his wid- 
ow, complying with the rules thereof, excepting the sub- 
scriptions. And we apprehend it to be necessary that the 
children of our deceased members be under the care of the 
society so far as to pay their schooling, if they cannot at- 
tend the free school ; also to put them out as apprentices, to 
suitable trades or places, if required. Also that no member 
shall convene the society together but it shall be the sole 
business of the committee and that only, on special occa- 
sions and to dispose of the money in hand to the best ad- 
vantage for the use of the society, after they are granted 
the liberty at the Monthly Meeting, and to transact all other 
business whatever, except that of Clerk and Treasurer. 
And we unanimously agree to choose Joseph Clarke to be 
our clerk and treasurer ; and whenever another shall suc- 
ceed him, it is always understood, that one of the people 
called Quakers, belonging to one of the three Monthly 
Meetings in Philadelphia, is to be chosen to act as clerk 
and treasurer of this useful institution. The following per- 
sons met, viz, Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Bar- 
ton, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Caesar Cranchell and 



A Study In Economic History 33 

James Potter, also William White, whose early assistance 
and useful remarks, are found truly profitable. This even- 
ing- the articles were read and after some beneficial remarks 
were made, they were agreed unto." The society met in the 
house of Richard Allen until May, 1788, when it moved be- 
cause his room was too small. From December 28, 1788, 
its meetings were held in the Friends' "free schoolhouse." 
January 1, 1791, the society began religious worship in an- 
other room. It seemed to have been at first purely bene- 
ficiary and included most of the free people regardless of 
religious affiliations. The following extracts from its min- 
utes will give some idea of the work of this early organiza- 
tion : "The 17th, 7th mo., 1787. At a Monthly Meeting of 
Free Africans, Caesar Thomas, William White and Caesar 
Cranchell, were appointed to have the oversight of the 
members this month." "15th, 12th mo., 1787. At a Month- 
ly Meeting of Free Africans, held at Philadelphia, Mark 
Stevenson, Caesar Thomas, William White, Moses John- 
son, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen were appointed to 
visit the members and give such advice as may appear 
necessary." January 1, 1788, this committee reported: 
"There are daily applications to join." There was also a 

call for more funds "Our stock is small, considering 

the numbers of members — at present it is but 12 pounds 
and if a few sick members should now be supported from 
it, it would not last us six months." At this meeting a reso- 
lution, having as its purpose raising the morals of its mem- 
bers, was read and approved : "That no man shall live with 
any woman as man and wife, without she is lawfully his 
wife and his certificate must be delivered to the clerk to be 

put on record." 

The committee reported on its first case of discipline, 
as follows: "Whereas, Samuel S., one of the members of 



34 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

the Free African Society, held in Philadelphia, for the bene- 
fit of the sick, has so shamefully deviated from our known 
rules, hath often unnecessarily left his tender wife and 
child, and kept company with a common woman, some- 
time quarreling, fighting, and swearing, for which he hath 
been long and tenderly dealt with, but he not forsaking his 
shameful practices, we therefore disown said Samuel S., 
from being a member of our society, till he condemns the 
same in life and conversation, which is our desire for him. 
Signed this 20th, of the 9th mo., 1788, on behalf of the so- 
ciety, by the Committee." 

ABSALOM JONES, 
RICHARD ALLEN, 
WILLIAM WHITE, 
MARK STEVENSON, 
WILLIAM GRAY, 
CAESAR CRANCHELL. 
CAESAR THOMAS. 

In the natural course of things, it became necessary 
for this society to take the initiative in almost all things rela- 
tive to the welfare of the free people of color; and we find 
it taking under advisement a form of marriage. The mar- 
riage of slaves and even of free Negroes had been much 
neglected and very grave conditions had therefore, develop- 
ed. Early in the history of the society a committee was ap- 
pointed to regulate as far as possible the matter of marri 
age and met with some success. As to the financial condi- 
tion, the following excerpts from the minutes of the society 
are of value: "On the 15th day of the 1st mo., 1790, the 
balance in the treasury was 42 pounds 9 shillings and 1 
pence, and as divers members think a propriety would at- 
tend a deposit of this balance in the Bank of North Amer- 
ica, he (the Treasurer) is desired to lodge it therein on be- 
half of the society as soon as convenient and report his per- 



A Study In Economic History 35 



formance of the business at the next meeting." Another 
step was to secure a burial place. Even though the Friends 
were as a rule, the best friends which the Negroes had, they 
did not care to be buried with them. In the record of the 
Friends of Middletown, in 1703 is written, "Friends are 
not satisfied with having Negroes buried in the Friends'' 
burying ground, therefore Robert Heaton, and Thomas 
Stackhouse are appointed to fence off a portion for such 
cases." The same body of Friends declared in 1798 that, 
"Negroes are forbidden to be buried within the walls of 
the graveyard belonging to this Meeting." Negroes were 
buried on the edge of plantations, with unmarked graves. 
It therefore became the duty of the Free African Society to 
purchase a lot for burying purposes. In their minutes of 
March 20, 1790, the following "PETITION TO THE 
MAYOR," is recorded: "To the Worshipful Mayor, Al- 
dermen and Common Councilmen of the City of Philadel- 
phia, in Common Council : The petition of the Free Afri- 
can Society for the benefit of the sick, in the City of Phila- 
delphia, respectfully showeth: That the burial ground 
called Potters Field, being in part appropriated for the 
benefit of black persons, and chiefly made use of for that 
purpose, and your petitioners being informed that the Com- 
mon Council are about to let the same, are desirous to have 
said burial ground under the care of the said society and are 
willing to pay same rent that hath been offered by any other 
person and a year's advance as soon as ground is enclosed 
and they are put in possession thereof. They, therefore, 
pray that the said ground may be rented to them for one 
or more years on the terms that they propose and under 



36 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

such regulations as the Common Council shall think prop- 
or to make. And your petitioners shall pray." 

Signed on behalf of the society by 

MOSE JOHNSON, 
ABSALOM JONES, 

Overseers. 
CYRUS BUSTILL, 
WILLIAM WHITE, 
HENRY STEWART, 
TOD FINCH, 
ABRAHAM INGLIS, 
JAMES CATON, 

Committee. 

The endorsement on the back of the petition was as 
follows: 

"We, the subscribers, having for some time past, been 
acquainted with several of the members of the 'FREE AF- 
RICAN SOCIETY, ESTABLISHED IN THE CITY OF 
PHILADELPHIA FOR THE BENEFIT OF SUCH 
AMONG THEM WHO MAY BECOME INFIRM,' do 
certify that we have informed ourselves of the rules and or- 
ders established by said society and approve of their insti- 
tution and can therefore recommend the members thereof, 
as well as their humane design, to the notice and attention 
of their fellow-citizens, they being worthy of a degree of 
confidence and encouragement." 

(Signed) GEO. WILLIAMS. 

WM. ASHBY, 
JOSEPH CLARK. 
SAML. MAGAW, 
TENCH COXE, 
BENJAMIN RUSH, 
NICHOLAS WALN, 
WILLIAM WHITE, 
CHAS. WILLIAMS, 
JOSEPH JAMES. 
WILLIAM SAVERY. 



A Study In Economic History 31 



Societies similar to the Free African Society of Phila- 
delphia existed in other cities. In Newport, Rhode Island, 
and in Boston, Massachusetts, were such societies among 
free people of color, and there is some interesting corre- 
spondence between them and the Philadelphia society. On 
October 17th, 1789, the Philadelphia society read a paper 
from the Newport and Boston societies, which was brought 
by Henry Stewart, a member of the Philadelphia society, 
who visited these two cities. The Newport letter (from 
the Union Society) stated its membership as 40, recited the 
woes of the Africans and twice expressed a desire that Ne- 
groes go back to Africa. It was signed by the president 
and seven members. 

In reply the Philadelphia society wrote : "With re- 
gard to the emigration to Africa which you mention, we 
have at present, but little to communicate on that head, ap- 
prehending every pious man is a good citizen of the whole 
world." 

Out of the African Society grew the independent Ne- 
gro church organization. At first this society was opened 
and closed without any religious exercises, and not until it 
was several months old, did it have any religious or devo- 
tional opening. When the break came with St. George's 
Methodist Church, it was this society which was the cen- 
ter for the beginning of the real Negro church. The two 
leaders, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, became the 
heads of the first two distinctively Negro churches in Amer- 
ica. Richard Allen became the founder of Bethel African 
Methodist Episcopal Church, at Sixth, near Lombard 
Street, which was founded September, 1787, and afterwards 
(1816) formed a union of independent African churches into 
the African Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Absalom Jones became the first rector of St. Thomas'" 



38 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



African Episcopal Church, now one of the leading Negro 
Episcopal Churches of America. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Negro 
population was 16,270, of whom 14,564 were free and 1706 
were slaves. The free Negro population increased from 
14,564 in 1800, to 56,949 at the beginning of the Civil War, 
and was 65,294 in 1870. But the increase in this element of 
the population was considerably less than that of the white 
population of the State. 

This period, especially prior to 1852, witnessed a great 
reaction in the attitude of the country at large, toward free 
Negroes. Their privileges were reduced almost to a mini- 
mum. Their rights of locomotion was greatly curtailed. 
Though some had done valiant service in the Revolution- 
ary War; the right to bear arms was not given them by 
the Constitutions of most of the new States admitted into 
the Union during the first quarter of the new century. 
Ohio gave the privilege of the militia to the whites only. 
Indiana and Illinois did likewise. Although in some States 
the Negro could vote in earlier days, the franchise was in 
the first half of this century taken from the Negroes in 
several States. This happened in Pennsylvania in 1838. 

One of the chief causes of the treatment of the Negroes 
was the agitation among the members of the American 
Colonization Society. Many of the members of this body 
were an earnest, well-intentioned people, who, however, 
knew but little of the real capacity of the Negroes and in 
spite of every argument against their own ideas, thought to 
benefit the Negroes by removing those who were freed, to 
Africa. It was organized in 1817, and included in its mem- 
bership such men as Bishop White of the Episcopal 
Church, Dr. Benjamin Rush and others of their class, which 
is sufficient proof that the purpose was not wholly against 



A Study In Economic History 39 



the free people of color. The society grew rapidly. State 
branches were established in both Northern and Southern 
States. A local society was established in Philadelphia, 
and the Pennsylvania State branch was organized in 1827. 
The National and State Governments were called upon to 
aid the purposes of the society and gave liberal support. 
For a while it seemed that the North and South had agreed 
upon a common programme, at least as to the disposition 
of the free Negro. The society was instrumental in secur- 
ing land in West Africa, where the Colony "Liberia" was 
established in 1821. Monrovia (named for President Mon- 
roe, who was a sympathizer), was made the capital and 
chief city. From 1821 to 1835 the society was active in 
transporting Negroes to Liberia, where the experiment of 
self-government was being tried by them. The Negroes who 
were transplanted to Africa to make this experiment con- 
sisted largely of the blacks manumitted in the South on the 
condition that they go to Africa and a few persons already 
free, who suffered the prejudice which their class had to 
undergo in the South. Few Negroes from the Northern 
States went. Only sixty-five were reported as going from 
Pennsylvania, from 1820 to 1833. 

The Colonization Society was an organized expression 
of the sentiment that Negroes could not assimilate with 
whites and had no future in this country except that of 
slaves ; but that they ought to have an opportunity to de- 
velop along their own lines. Having done duty as slaves 
the on ly hope for them and a great relief for the whites, 
was to have the Negroes carried back to Africa. This was 
apart from the idea, which no doubt strongly drew many 
of the Southern element into the society, namely, that it 
would relieve the South of a class of people who were a 
constant menace to the slave system and thus, by ridding 



40 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

the slaves of a bad example — the free Negro — and also by 
diverting- the attention of the North from abolition of slav- 
ery, to colonization of free blacks, would make slavery in 
the South more secure. 

From the first the society was bitterly opposed by the 
free blacks of the North. When the first attempt was made 
to organize in Pennsylvania, Richard Allen, one of the 
founders of the free African Society and the first Bishop of 
the A. M. E. Church, and James Forten, a prominent Ne- 
gro merchant of Philadelphia, most strenuously opposed it. 
At no time and no place did the society secure a very strong 
following among the Negroes of this State ; and it enrolled 
but few of the names of the most prominent Negroes in 
other Northern States. The first Annual Convention of 
Free Negroes in 1831, adopted a resolution recommended 
6y the committee against "the operations and misrepresen- 
tations of the American Colonization Society in these United 
States." One of its direct influences was to make conditions 
extremely hard for Negroes. It painted a picture of despair 
for them, so long as they remained in this country. It 
busied itself in preaching the essential mental and moral 
inferiority of the Negro race. It told the whites that the 
free Negroes who were about one-tenth of the entire num- 
ber of Negroes, would degrade them and that therefore, 
they must get rid of them. It told the Negroes that their 
only hope was in Africa. It preached despair. Legislators 
took its word ana accordingly, laws were constructed 
against Negioes, in most wanton disregard of the spirit of 
the generation before. 

Illustrating the state of public opinion brought about 
by the society, its organ, the African Repository, of March, 
1827, printed from the Public Ledger, of Philadelphia, the 
following: "In consequence of his own inveterate habits 



A Study In Economic History 41 

and the no less inveterate prejudices of the whites, it is a 
sadly demonstrated truth that the Negro cannot in this 
country, become an enlightened and useful citizen. If then, 
they are a useless and dangerous species of population, we 
would ask, is it generous to our Southern friends to burden 
us with them? We think it is a mistaken philanthropy, 
which would liberate the slave, unfitted by education and 
habit for freedom, and cast him upon a merciless and de- 
spising world; for the Negroes' condition is not alleviated 
and an unkindly act is done to the free States" Another 
item in the same organ of the society was taken from the 
Ohio State Journal, as follows: "Columbus, Ohio, July 12. 
We are suffering under many pernicious effects incident to 
a slave population, without any of the few benefits which 
are derived from slave holding. Immense numbers of mu- 
lattoes are constantly flocking by tens and hundreds into 
Ohio. Their fecundity is proverbial; they are worse than 
drones to society and they already swarm in our land like 
locusts. This State calls loudly for legislative interfer- 
ence." A correspondent from Maine, a clergyman, wrote 
the Repository: "The colored population of this country 
can never rise to respectability and happiness here." The 
weaknesses of the free Negroes were exaggerated and their 
failures were widely advertised, to convince them and the 
whites that they had no place in this country. 

Pennsylvania did not go quite so far as other States 
but the reaction showed itself even here. The first attempt 
made in the State to get obnoxious laws in operation, was 
in July, 1832, just after the Nat Turner insurrection in Vir- 
ginia, when a bill was introduced in the Legislature to re- 
quire all free Negroes to carry passes and to exclude all 
others from the State. This bill was defeated. Five years 
later, however, the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth 



42 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



in the case of Hobbs et al., v. Fogg, declared that a Negro 
was not a free man in the sense of being a voter. The fol- 
lowing year, 1838, the Constitutional Convention limited the 
franchise to "free white male" citizens; and until 1855, for 
a period of seventeen years, the Negroes of the State were 

disfranchised. 

Under these discouragements, it would have been 
quite natural for the Negroes to have sunk into even a lower 
position than they were. What they needed was encour- 
agement and inspiration and not discouragement and ostra- 
cism. They were but an extremely small minority of the 
population and at best, they would do but little. They 
were lately enslaved and generally ignorant. The Coloni- 
zation agitation was one of the most unfortunate occur- 
rences which entered into the life of the Northern Negro. 

Contrary to the above opinions, the Negroes of Penn- 
sylvania were generally progressing, notwithstanding the 
fact that the period from 1820 to 1855 was for them, the 
darkest in the history of the State. With the aid of Quak- 
ers and abolitionists, who as a body, were never very en- 
thusiastic over the colonization scheme, they had establish- 
ed schools, churches, and other institutions of helpfulness 
and uplifts. Between 1820 and 1855, there were established 
at least a dozen schools taught by Negroes, largely under 
the patronage of Friends. 

Philadelphia Negroes organized during this period, 
various literary and debating societies. In 1833, the "Phila- 
delphia Library Company of Colored Persons" was organ- 
ized and in 1841 had a hundred members notwithstanding 
the entrance fee was one dollar and the monthly dues, twen- 
ty-five cents. The Rush Library Company and Debating 
Society of Pennsylvania was organized in 1836. The De- 
mosthenean Institute was organized in 1839, and the Gil- 



A Study In Economic History 43 



bert Lyceum in 1841. Among the women were the Mi- 
nerva Literary Society and the Edgeworth Literary Asso- 
ciation. Out of one of these societies grew a Negro news- 
paper — The Demosthenean Shield, which was started in 
1841. This paper had a subscription list of a thousand at 
its first appearance. 

The Institute for Colored Youth was established for 
the special purpose of extending to Negroes "the benefits 
of a good education." In this period, Negro minstrels be- 
gan to attract attention in Philadelphia. This period also 
saw the organization of the churches. In 1816, the African 
Methodist Episcopal Church denomination was organized 
in Philadelphia; and in 1820 the African Methodist Episco- 
pal Zion Church in New York. These were the first at- 
tempts of Negroes to secure co-operation in church matters 
on a large scale. During this period the African Method- 
ist Episcopal Church, with headquarters at Philadelphia, 
sent its black missionaries as far west as the Mississippi 
River and north into Canada to organize the church life of 
the blacks of these sections. This period also witnessed 
the rise of the independent secret orders among Negroes, 
which have become so powerful among them throughout 
the country. The strongest of these in early days was the 
Odd Fellows, which was introduced from England in 1843 
and 1846. During this period we have from time to time, 
sketches of Negroes of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. 
The chief ones were made in 1837, 1848 and 1856. In 1837 
there was made a registry of the trades of Free People of 
Color, which gave the names of a large number of Negroes 
doing business on their own account. In 1838 there was 
published a pamphlet on "The Present State and Condition 
of the People of Color of Philadelphia," in which it was re- 
ported that whereas the taxable real estate of 229 persons 



The Negro In Pennsylvania 



was $112,464; it was in 1838, $322,532, with encumbrances 
amounting- to only $12,906. The personal property 
amounted to $667,859, making- a total of $990,391, for both 
real and personal property. It was reported that Negroes 
paid $161,008 in house rents, $5491 in ground rents and 
$464.50 in water rents. 

In 1849 another report was made on the "Condition of 
the People of Color of Philadelphia." The value of real es- 
tate was put at $531,809, and the amount of encumbrance 
by mortgage and ground rent at $130,442, making a net real 
estate valuation of $401,367. The total number of families 
in the city was reported as 4262, and the total number of 
property owners as 315, about 7.4 per cent, of the total. 
The value of personal estate was estimated as $630,886, of 
which all except $194,318 was owned by persons living with 
white families. Forty-three persons were said to own prop- 
erty worth from $1000 to $2000; ten from $2000 to $5000, 
and two between $10,000 and $20,000. The property hold- 
ers were, 78 laborers ; 53 females, of whom 46 were widows ; 
49 tradesmen, 41 mechanics, 35 coachmen and hackmen, 28 
waiters, 20 hairdressers, and 11 professional men. Be- 
sides the above, they were reported to have had $200,000 in 
banks. In 1849, tne report showed that there were 15,532 
Negroes in the city, of whom 8900, or 57.5 per cent, were 
natives of Pennsylvania, and 6632, or 42.77 per cent, were 
immigrants ; 1077 were born slaves, of whom j6j were 
manumitted by their masters; 275 bought their freedom 
themselves, paying $63,034 for the same; and the freedom 
of 256 was purchased by others ; the remaining 39 not re- 
porting. In the "Statistics of Colored People," published 
in 1856, there is the following statements: "We (of 
Philadelphia) possess $2,685,693 of real and personal es- 
tate and have paid $9766.42 for taxes during the past year, 



A Study In Economic History 45 

and $396,782.27 for house and ground rent. We have had 
incorporated 108 mutual beneficial societies, having 9762 
members, with an annual income of $29,600 and a perma- 
nent invested fund of $28,366, which is deposited in various 
institutions among the whites, who derive large profit there- 
from. One thousand three hundred and eighty-five fami- 
lies were assisted by these societies to the amount of $10,- 
292.38 during the year 1853. Again as to crimes among us, 
by a letter from Judge Kelly, written in answer to certain 
questions put to him, it is shown that for the three years 
up to 1854, the commitments of colored persons to the 
Philadelphia County prison have gradually decreased, 
while those of the whites for the same period have mark- 
edly increased." 

This period witnesses the rise of Negro business. As 
early as 1810, there was a Negro fire company in Philadel- 
phia. About this time, the Negro people began to go to 
Pittsburg, largely from Virginia and West Virginia. The 
Negro engaged in hairdressing and barbers' business. One 
of the oldest Negro businesses owned by Negroes in the 
State of Pennsylvania is in Pittsburg. During this period, 
the Negro caterers were the most prominent in Philadel- 
phia. Smith & Whipper was one of the largest lumber 
firms in South Central Pennsylvania. Both men were 
among the wealthiest Negroes the State has produced. An- 
other development was the beneficial society. The Free 
African Society was the pioneer among them. This had 
become identified mainly with St. Thomas' Episcopal 
Church, but other societies had grown out of it. The con- 
dition of these societies in 1831 is given in the following ad- 
vertisement in the Public Ledger, March, 183 1 : "To the 
Public : Whereas, we believe it to be the duty of every 



46 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



person to contribute as far as is in their power towards al- 
leviating the miseries and supplying the wants of those of 
our fellow-beings who through the many misfortunes and 
•calamities to which human nature is subject, may become 
iit objects for charity. And whereas, from the many priva- 
tions to which we, as people of color are subject and our 
limited opportunity of obtaining the necessaries of life, 
tmany of us have been included in the number dependent 
on the provisions made by law, for the maintenance of the 
poor; therefore, as we constitute a part of the public bur- 
den, we have deemed it our duty to use such means as was 
in our reach to lessen its weight, among which we have 
found the forming of institutions for mutual relief, the most 
practical and best calculated to effect our object." "Some 
have misunderstood the object and the benefit of these so- 
cieties, therefore, this report is given." To these institu- 
tions, each member pays a sum varying from one to eight 
dollars as an initiation fee, and from 12 to 25 cents monthly. 
These funds are exclusively appropriated to the relief of 
such of its members as through sickness or misfortune are 
unable to work ; to the interments of the deceased members 
and the relief of their widows, orphans, etc. The records 
show a total of $5,819 paid out in the years 1830-31. 

Negroes were not without interest in their country, 
notwithstanding the country at that time gave them but 
little to inspire patriotism. When the war with England 
began in 1812, Pennsylvania Negroes offered their services. 
The committee which had charge of the defense of Phila- 
delphia, declined the services of a "Black Legion" because 
of lack of arms ; but Negroes helped in the fortification of 
Philadelphia, and later a Negro battalion was recruited in 
that city. 



A Study In Economic History 47 



One of the growing signs of racial self-consciousness 
was the conventions of free people of color. It was found 
necessary about the middle of this period for the free peo- 
ple of color to consult one another about their welfare in 
this country, and in the North. Accordingly, several con- 
ventions were called. The first one of them was in Phila- 
delphia in 1831, when there were forty delegates and honor- 
ary members from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland. 
Pennsylvania had the largest number of representatives, 
eighteen in all. The session lasted four days and various 
topics were discussed. One of the chief of these was edu- 
cation. It was proposed to establish a school of manual 
labor, where students could go and work their way. New 
Haven, Connecticut, was chosen as the place for such a 
school. In accord with the spirit of the times, however, 
the citizens of New Haven very greatly objected to any 
such institution. At a meeting held in New Haven, the 
white citizens expressed themselves as greatly opposed to 
such schools, and gave notice that the Mayor, Aldermen. 
Common Council and freedmen of New Haven would re- 
sist its establishment by every lawful means. 

The manual labor school was never established. So 
far as the evidence goes, this was the first attempt of Ne- 
groes to establish an industrial school. The subject of 
emigration also received a lengthy discussion before the 
convention, and it was recommended that the emigration 
to Canada be encouraged as a measure of relief from the 
prejudice and persecutions which Negroes suffered in many 
places in the North. But "strong resolutions against the 
American Colonization Society were adopted." 

The second convention was held June 4 to 15, 1832. 



48 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

There were thirty delegates representing eight States, 
Pennsylvania having nine delegates. At this convention, 
the American Colonization Society was vigorously con- 
demned, abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia 
urged and a proposition to purchase lands in Canada for an 
asylum for Negroes emigrating from the United States was 
discussed. It was reported to this convention that eight 
hundred acres of land had already been secured, five hun- 
dred of which were under cultivation, two hundred log 
houses had been erected, and two thousand persons had 
emigrated there from their native country, despite the hos- 
tility of the Canadians. The convention appointed an 
agent to investigate the whole Canadian situation. At the 
third convention, June 7, 1833, there were fifty-eight dele- 
gates, representing seven States and the District of Colum- 
bia. This convention condemned the law passed by the 
Legislature of Connecticut, designed to prohibit the estab- 
lishment of any school in that State for colored persons. 
William Lloyd Garrison's effort to obtain funds to estab- 
lish a manual labor school was endorsed ; the Colonization 
Society's , schemes condemned, and a committee on the 
Canadian settlement was appointed. An effort was made 
to find out the exact status of the free people of color, their 
number, churches, Sunday Schools, temperance societies, 
benevolent societies, day schools, mechanics and storekeep- 
ers. It was further recommended that "free labor stores" 
be established from which the products of slave labor 
should be debarred. 

The next convention was held in New York, June 8, 
1834, at which there were about forty delegates, represent- 
ing ten States. The principal action discussed this year 
was the foundation of moral reform and total abstinence 



A Study In Economic History 49 

from intoxicating liquors, which was recommended. It 
was further urged that all boarding houses where gambling 
was permitted be discontinued. 

The next session of the convention was held in Phila- 
delphia, June i to 5, inclusive, 1835. Forty-four delegates 
were present. In 1836 and 1837, a "Convention of the 
Moral Reforms" held sessions in Philadelphia, and from 
time to time, other conventions were held. Philadelphia 
was always the center for these early movements and 
Pennsylvania Negroes always took a prominent part in 
them. Among the representatives of Pennsylvania in this 
convention, were such men as Bishop Richard Allen, of the 
African Methodist Episcopal Church ; William Whipper, 
James Cornish, Frederick Hinton, Richard D. Johnson, 
James Forten, Sr., James Forten, Jr., Jacob C. White, Sr., 
Joseph Cassey and Robert Purvis. 

The history of the Negro in the movement for the 
freedom of the slave has hitherto received all too slight 
mention and except in a few rare instances, even the names 
of Negroes who gave valuable services have perished. 
Without the presence and help of the free Negroes in Penn- 
sylvania, that great and mysterious system known as the 
Underground Railroad, would never have operated so suc- 
cessfully. The homes of Negroes were the stopping places 
of slaves. When whites dared not keep a Negro in their 
homes for fear of discovery, Negroes could hide the escap- 
ing slave among those of his own race. Not only did Ne- 
groes do work of sheltering, but much of the actual work 
of rescuing was largely done by Negroes. Some of them 
were able to go into the very heart of slave territory and 
bring their brethren out. Thus Harriett Tubman is said 
to have led scores of Negroes out of slavery into freedom. 



50 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

Negroes did much of the hauling from place to place and 
the ferrying across rivers, the watching during the night, 
and general patrolling so necessary to the safety of the 
fugitives. One of the greatest and most active agents of 
the Underground Railroad, was a Negro in Gettysburg. 
Daniel Ross, colored, was active in Norristown ; another 
"colored man," in York; a colored man assisted William 
White, of Columbia; Cato Johnson, colored, drove a team 
which hauled cars over the bridge and brought all "bag- 
gage" safely across, where the agents had another trusty 
colored man to receive it. * * * 

The fugitives were then taken through Black's hotel 
yard to another portion of the town and concealed over 
night, when William Wright, of that place, generally took 
them in charge and sent some to Daniel Gibbons and some 
direct to Philadelphia, in a false end of a box car, owned by 
Stephen Smith and William Whipper, colored men and 
lumber merchants of Columbia. "Thomas Bessick, a col- 
ored man who ran cars in Columbia, was one of the bold- 
est and most useful agents there." "Robert Loney, colored, 
ferried slaves over the Susquehanna to Columbia." "Sam- 
uel Mifflin, gave an escaped slave named Perry, over to the 
care of Robert Loney ;" "two slaves from Cecil County, 
Maryland," early in the night, they with their sister and 
her child, fled to that well known colored man on the Sus- 
quehanna, Robert Loney, who ferried fugitives across the 
river in the night, at various places below Columbia, and 
gave them to the care of William Wright, who distributed 
them to other agents. Many other cases are cited. 

Not only in the actual work of the abolition movement, 
were Negroes concerned, but they had part in the planning 
of the movement in Pennsylvania. It has been said that 



A Study In Economic History 51 



the first twenty-five dollars that William Lloyd Garrisons 
secured for his "Liberator" came from a Negro. It was 
true that even before the first issue of the Liberator was 
published, a Philadelphia Negro, James Forten, Sr., sent 
fifty-four dollars, payment in advance, for twenty-seven 
subscriptions. Forten afterward contributed over a thou- 
sand dollars to Garrison and his cause. Negroes contrib- 
uted liberally of their scanty means. "In one case, as far 
back as 1836, the colored people of Philadelphia raised over 
seven thousand dollars in twenty-four hours to purchase a 
runaway slave." William Whipper, a lumber merchant,, 
said that he contributed $13,000 to the anti-slavery cause;, 
a thousand dollars, each year from 1847 to i860; and gave 
$5000 during the war. Robert Purvis and William Still 
were two most useful members of the Philadelphia Vigi- 
lance Committee ; the former at one time its president, and. 
the latter for many years, its secretary. This committee 
was composed of the most prominent of the anti-slavery ad- 
vocates of Philadelphia. 

It received the escaping slaves from all parts of tf»© 
country, cared for them, found them work or shipped them 
on toward Canada. This committee investigated cases of 
kidnapping of Negroes and instituted proceedings for their 
recovery. It also helped to raise funds to purchase Ne- 
groes whom the fugitive slave laws had delivered out of 
their hands. Much of the clerical work with regards to> 
these matters was done by a Negro, William Still, the 
secretary, who wrote a very interesting and comprehensive 
description of its work. 



52 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

THE NEGRO POPULATION SINCE THE CIVIL 

WAR. 



The Civil War marks a distinct break in the history of 
the Pennsylvania Negro population. This break is noticed 
in the character of the population. During the period be- 
fore the Civil War, though the native Negroes were barely 
a majority, they were made of a desirable sort, while the 
immigrant Negroes were not altogether of an undesirable 
character. In fact this period as compared with later 
periods, witnessed the migration of many of the best of the 
Southern Negroes to the North. There were several dis- 
tinctive groups. One of the most important of these, is the 
South Carolina group, composed of several score of Ne- 
groes who came chiefly from Charleston and vicinity. 
Most of them were free born ; many of them were well 
educated and some of them were comparatively wealthy. 
Among these were the Purvises, the Adgers, Daniel A. 
Payne, afterward, Bishop of the A. M. E. Church. Many of 
them were skilled mechanics, such as the Vennings, the 
Casseys, the Mains and others. There was another group 
not quite so distinguished as the Charleston group, from 
Delaware. Most of these were mulattoes, as were many of 
the Charlestonians. They formed their own beneficial so- 
ciety and to a large extent, attended their own church. 
Then there were the Maryland and Virginia groups, com- 
posed largely of ex-slaves, but a selected class, being those 
who had been manumitted by their masters, or who had 
bought their freedom, and a few who escaped from slavery. 
Another important group was the West India group, near- 
ly all of whom were skilled in some kind of art or craft. 



A Study In Economic History 53 



Among these, were the LeCounts, of Negro-French extrac- 
tion, the Cuyjets, Rolands, Montiers, the Dutertes, the Du- 
trieuilles, the Augustines, the Baptistes, and others who be- 
came active in the affairs of their people. 

With the Civil War there began a less selected kind of 
immigration. For, whereas before the war, there was but 
small opportunity for self-expression on the part of the in- 
telligent and skilled Negroes in the South, the end of the 
war suddenly left them with opportunities which far ex- 
celled even their preparation. When the slaves were freed, 
this skilled group naturally assumed the leadership in poli- 
tics, religion, business, and otherwise. Thus was cut short 
to a large extent, the migration of the intelligent and skill- 
ed Negroes to the North. Indeed, many in the North, went 
South. On the other hand, many of the exslaves of the 
more ignorant type migrated North. 

There was also another change which was not how- 
ever, so sudden as that in the character of the Negro im- 
migration and that was in the attitude of the whites. The 
Negro before the war, had served in the family of the white 
Pennsylvanian so far as to gain their respect and largely 
their confidence. The Friends especially, felt themselves 
much concerned about the Negroes ; for four times at least, 
between 1820 and i860, they published statistical sketches 
of the Negroes. But after the war, the interest in the Ne- 
groes in the South far overshadowed that of those at home. 
Then, too, an entirely new group began to congregate in 
the cities and to overshadow the old group. 

Philadelphia and Pittsburg attracted the greatest num- 
ber of Negroes. The Negro population which increased 
but very slowly from 1820 to i860, began after i860, to 
grow rapidly and was in 1900, 156,845, an increase of 175 



54 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

per cent, during forty years. In i860, there were 56,949 
Negroes in the State; in 1870, 65,294; in 1880, 85,535: in 
2890, 107,596, and in 1900, 156,845. This increase is due al- 
most solely to the immigration from the South. From 1870 
to 1880 it was greatest, being 34.9 per cent. At present 
there is a rapid increase of Negro immigrants from the 
South, in spite of the fact that the economic conditions in 
the North are presumed to be harder than in the South. 

The large plantations of the South are being broken 
up, and much land is being neglected for the want of labor. 
The head of the Department of Agriculture in Virginia 
■writes : "The farmers are not able to gather crops at the 
proper time on account of lack of labor." The head of the 
Department of Agriculture in North Carolina writes : 
"From all over the State comes the complaint of the scar- 
city of labor." There can be no doubt of the fact therefore, 
that the particular part of the South from which the Penn- 
sylvania Negro immigrants come, has great need of the 
kind of labor furnished by Negroes. Not only is there great 
demand for laborers to remain at home but the resources 
of the South are quite undeveloped as compared with those 
of the North. 

The South is, to a large extent, as the West was forty 
years ago, a country of opportunity, where land is compara- 
tively cheap, the cost of living is comparatively low, im- 
provements are easily made ; the climate is not so rigor- 
ous and the returns from the lands are often better than 
in the North ; in some places two crops may be made 
during a year. On the other hand, the opportunities 
of the North, and especially in the cities to which Ne- 
groes go most rapidly, do not seem so inviting to the small 
investor ; here the cost of living is high and tends to rise ; 



A Study In Economic History 55 

the land is practically outside the reach of most wage-earn- 
ers and the taxes and repairs, connected with the unsteadi- 
ness of employment, are such that it appears of but little 
advantage for a wage-earner to own a home. Here compe- 
tition is keenest and, for the Negroes, a climate different 
from that in which their ancestors for thousands of years 
lived, as well as the indifference and even hostility, of or- 
ganized labor toward the Negro. Here is also a higher 
standard of efficiency and a more systematic method of 
labor. It seems therefore, a priori that for the Negro to 
leave the South and come to the North, is to go contrary to 
sane economic philosophy. Still, the migration goes on, 
and for this reason, its causes must be carefully sought. 

In order to find out why the Negroes leave the South, 
a personal canvass was made among them. Five hundred 
and twelve Negroes filled out blanks answering the ques- 
tions: "Why did you leave the South?" "Why did you 
come to Philadelphia?" etc. The answers are arranged as 
nearly as possible in the exact language of the immigrant 
in the following table : 

CAUSES ASSIGNED BY PHILADELPHIA NEGROES FOR LEAVING 

THE SOUTH 

Males Females Total 



Causes 



Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent 



Desire for higher wages 120 44.6 96 39,5 216 42.2 

Higher wages and travel 12 4.5 10 4.1 22 4.3 

Higher wages and protection 14 5.2 6 25 20 3.9 

To better conditions 25 93 31 12.8 56 10.9 

Tired of the South 9 3.3 13 5.4 22 4.3 

Wanted to make change 27 10 22 9 49 9.6 

Came with parent or guardian 29 10.8 40 16.5 69 33.5 

Old persons to be with their children 3 1.1 6 2.5 9 1.3 

Parent died; left home to work 2 .7 52 7 13 

Had position in North 3 1.1 3 1.2 6 1.2 

Run away from home 1 .4 1 .2 

Brought away by soldiers 1 .4 j .2 

To attend school 3 1.1 3 .6 

Not given 20 7J 11 4-5 3i 6 

Total 269 100 243 100 312 100 



56 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



According to this table 54.3 per cent, of the males and 
46.1 per cent, of the females came chiefly for the higher 
wages which they expected. If those who came "to better 
their condition" are included among those who came for 
higher wages and those who came with parents or guard- 
ians, and elderly persons who came with their adult chil- 
dren are excluded from the count, as having come without 
any particular choice of their own, it is clear that the great 
majority of Negroes who came to the State, came for the 
money wages they expected to obtain. 

There can be no doubt that the economic motive is the 
chief one but just why, it seems hard to understand, since 
the economic advantages of the South seem to be so great. 
There are secondary causes, which will be discussed be- 
fore, and preliminary to, the chief economic cause. The 
first of these remote causes is the change of the whole 
Southern situation. Slavery was abolished, in the 60' s, and 
as a system became illegal. But the sentiments of the 
whites and the capacity of the Negroes did not thereby be- 
come much altered. The Negro, indeed, freed from servi- 
tude had time to follow his own inclinations, and the best 
of them had opportunity to cultivate their capabilities along 
some new lines. But the whites — even those who were 
kind — never believed that Negroes were capable of self- 
initiative, or of independently carrying on their own busi- 
ness. Trained in this belief by the school of actual condi- 
tions for generations in this country, it is easily explained 
why the whites did not readily accept the situation. 
Though the Negroes were nominally free, the first attempt 
of the white South was to re-enslave the Negroes, by a sys- 
tem of black laws, contract laws, lien laws, etc. 

Although in the main, these laws have been repealed 



A Study In Economic History 57 



or changed in the Southern States, still the spirit which 
called them forth is not entirely dead, so far as a large pro- 
portion of the whites of the South are concerned, and the 
Negro laborer still finds himself hedged about by a multi- 
tude of laws and customs which bind him practically to 
serfdom. It is the attempt to force Negro laborers to work 
by outside pressure, rather than appeal to their economic 
sense and economic needs, that causes unrest among the 
blacks in all parts of the South. For throughout the South 
the interests taken seriously into consideration are the in- 
terests of the white employer and not of the black laborer, 

as such. 

The Southern white man does not seem to have yet 

reached the point where he differentiates between racial 

and economic problems. He often refuses to listen to the 

Negroes' economic demands, because he mistakes them for 

demands for racial and social equality. 

On the other hand, Negroes are acquiring property, 
intelligence, and a larger view of the world, which is not 
retarding the growth of their self-respect, nor their desire 
for a larger share of the product of their labor. Because 
the whites of the South are not realizing this rapidly 
enough, the vexing problems of that section are increasing. 

The increase of intelligence and wealth is creating 
more discontent among a large class of Negroes, as respects 
many economic conditions. This discontent is felt most by 
those who are most intelligent and who possess the most 
wealth. But this class, however, does not emigrate from 
the South, chiefly because of their position. Generally, 
they are situated socially and economically better than they 
might be if they should leave. But the Negro who does not 
own property, who has no high position among Negroes 



58 



The Negro In Pennsylvania 



either socially or economically sees but little reason for re- 
maining, and when opportunity affords, he leaves. The 
wages paid in the South to the 512 Negroes above men- 
tioned were as follows, as compared with wages they now 
receive : 

NUMBER OF NEGROES RECEIVING SPECIFIED WAGES 
PER WEEK IN THE SOUTH AND NORTH. 



Weekly Wages. 



South. 
Males . Females . Tot . 



North. 
Males . Females . Tot. 



Board and clothes only.. 6 

50c. to $1.99 8 

$2.00 to $2.99 22 

$3.00 to $3.99 26 

$4.00 to $4.99 12 

$5.00 to $5.99 21 

$6.00 to $6.99 47 

$7.00 to $8.99 24 

$9.00 to $11.99 5 

$12.00 to $13.99 r 

$14.00 to $15.99 1 

$16.00 and over 1 

Working for self 5 

Not working 19 

Not reported 7 1 



4 
26 

48 

34 
11 

14 
6 



24 
75 



243 



10 

34 

70 

60 

23 

35 

53 

25 

5 

1 

1 

1 

5 

43 

146 

512 



10 
11 

23 
35 
64 

23 
3 

7 

5 

5 

83 



1 

11 
16 
46 

3i 
12 

9 

7 
4 



19 
19 

68 



269 



243 



1 

11 

16 

56 

42 

35 

44 

7i 

27 

3 

7 

24 

24 

151 

512 



Total 269 

More than 50 per cent, said that they left the South be- 
cause they wanted higher wages, and this comparison 
seems to corroborate their statement. The wages general- 
ly paid the women in the South were $6 per month ($1.50 
per week), to $3 per week in the small towns, and from $2 
to $4 per week in the cities ; while the men in the South re- 
ceive $2 to $3.50 per week in the small towns and on the 
farm, from $5 to $9 in the cities. These wages are bettered 
by from 75 per cent, to 150 per cent, in the North. Domes- 
tic service pays women in Philadelphia from $3 to $6 per 
week, averaging about $4.50, while men receive from $6 to 
$12 per week, averaging $9. 



A Study In Economic History 59 

According to the "Wages of Farm Labor in the United 
States," Bulletin No. 26, of the Department of Agriculture, 
Negro labor in ordinary times in Pennsylvania, received in 
1902, 92 cents per day with board, or $1.30 per day without 
board, while in Virginia the same labor received 56 cents 
and 76 cents respectively; in North Carolina, 49 cents and 
62 cents. If hired by the year the Negro farm labor in 
Pennsylvania received $14.31 with board, or $24.29 with- 
out board, per month, while in the South the wages are as 
low as $7.61 with board and $10.79 without board, less than 
half what is paid Negroes in Pennsylvania. 

According to the testimony before the Industrial Com- 
mission, many Negroes have migrated from Prince George 
County, Maryland, for shorter hours and larger pay. Many 
of these came to Pennsylvania. Many thousands of Ne- 
groes have been brought to Pennsylvania by the employ- 
ment agencies. 

One Philadelphia agent claimed to have given posi- 
tions to more than 15,000 Southern girls and women dur- 
ing the past eighteen years. Some of the new industrial 
opportunities have been the asphalt paving in Philadelphia, 
Pittsburg and other cities, which is done largely by Ne- 
groes from the South. The filter plant in Philadelphia, the 
Subway in the same city, have employed thousands of Ne- 
groes, more or less regularly, and at better wages than they 
could have gotten at home. Street railways, railroads and 
steel works, the coal mines, needing sturdy, rough workers 
have brought many. Such companies as the Midvale Steel 
Company, the United States Steel Corporation, and other 
great industrial plants, employ hundreds of Negroes, most 
of whom are immigrants from the South. Domestic ser- 
vice is the chief inducement for women, and brings not a 



60 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 

few men. The brilliancy of the city, the desire for excite- 
ment; for fine clothes and unrestrained amusement, un- 
doubtedly bring many, but there are comparatively few who 
are not attracted by the prospect of a better social situation, 
and increased earnings, and freer self-expression. 

Many Negroes have come away from their homes in 
the South because of the fear of mob violence. While this 
has not been by any means the chief cause of emigration, 
yet a sufficient number have come to warrant attention be- 
ing paid to this factor. This is especially important be- 
cause some of the Negroes driven North by this cause, are 
rather above than below the average. Perhaps no instance 
of race conflict in the South has had more effect upon the 
Negroes in Pennsylvania, than the riot at Wilmington, 
North Carolina, which occurred during August, 1898. The 
occasion for the riot was an editorial or series of editorials 
in the Record, a Negro daily paper in Wilmington, ac- 
cusing white men of greater immorality than Negro men 
'are guilty of. This was sufficient to stir the anger of the 
whites. The editor was seized and beattn and would have 
been killed had he not left the city. His property was de- 
stroyed and the building burned to the ground. His as- 
sistant editor and business manager, traveling agent, fore- 
man and general manager were also sent away. As a re- 
sult of this riot which came just at the time when the politi- 
cal fight against Negro enfranchisement was bitterest in 
North Carolina, hundreds of Negroes left the city of Wil- 
mington and country round about, and scattered themselves 
through the North. To Pennsylvania a large number of 
them came, and there are possibly a thousand of them in 
the State to-day. The editor himself became a janitor in 
Philadelphia. 



A Study In Economic History 61 



As a result of the friction of race, another immigrant 
was a former member of Congress from North Carolina. 
The Atlanta, Georgia, riot of 1906, caused many Negroes 
to come North, some of whom stopped in Philadelphia. 
As in the case of the editor from North Carolina, so the 
editor of "The Voice of the Negro," then the most widely 
circulated Negro magazine in the country, was forced to 
leave Atlanta, Georgia, and give up his business. He is 
now in Philadelphia, an exile from home, and his magazine 
has been crushed. 

The major portion of Pennsylvania's Negroes are im- 
migrants from other States. The census gives the birth- 
place of Negroes living in the different States ; and from 
this it is possible to find the birthplace of the Negroes who 
help to make up the Pennsylvania population. The census 
also enables us to find the place of residence of the Negroes 
who were born in the State of Pennsylvania, thus to show 
the immigration and the emigration. According to the 
census of 1900, there were 85,014 Negroes living in the 
United States who were born in Pennsylvania. Of these, 
70,365 still live in the State, while 14,649 had moved out of 
the State and lived in other parts of the country. There 
were but few Negroes who were born in other Northern 
States who had immigrated to Pennsylvania. On the other 
hand, there has been considerable emigration to other 
Northern States. Pennsylvania has given more liberally 
of her Negro population to the New England and Middle 
Atlantic States, than she has received from them, although 
the excess is small, the largest being only 1297 for New 
Jersey. On the other hand, there has been comparatively 
little emigration to the South, excepting Maryland and 
Delaware. 



62 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 

Virginia has given to Pennsylvania more than ninety- 
times as many Negroes as it has received from this State; 
Pennsylvania received from Virginia 40,870 immigrant Ne- 
groes and gave 848; from North Carolina, 5206 and gave 
137; from South Carolina, 1009 and gave 32. The stream 
of migration to-day has kept up steadily. During the year 
1906, the Philadelphia Association for the Protection of 
Colored Women reported more than 1600 cases of women 
met at the docks. Most of them came by boat and were 
probably of the poorer class. Perhaps a larger number 
came by rail. Of those reported by the association above 
referred to, 757 came from Virginia, 598 from Maryland, 30 
from the District of Columbia, 46 from Pennsylvania, 2 
from New Jersey, 5 from New York, 2 from South Caro- 
lina, 6 from Jamaica, 2 from Colorado. 

The population of Pennsylvania is thus kept up by 
immigration chiefly from the South. This is not wholly 
abnormal considering the fact that the Negro population 
of Pennsylvania is chiefly and increasingly urban ; for not 
only in the case of Negroes but in the case of the whites as 
well, it is a question if our large cities are increasing in 
population by natural growth, exclusive of immigration. 

The Negro population in Pennsylvania in 1900, was 
76.7 per cent, urban and 23.3 per cent, rural; 120,285 of the 
156,845 Negroes of the state lived in cities , of at least 100,- 
000 inhabitants; 15,004, in cities of between 25,000 and 100,- 
000 inhabitants; 10,184 in cities of between 8,000 and 25,- 
000; 7,155 in cities of from 4.000 to 8,000; and 4,453 in cities 
from 2,500 to 4,000 inhabitants. A much larger percentage 
of the Negroes than of the whites live in cities of Penn- 
sylvania. The following table will show the percentage of 
Negro population in cities of different sizes at the last 
three censuses: 



A Study In Economic History 63 

PER CENT. OF NEGRO POPULATION IN CITIES OF DIF- 
FERENT SIZES, 1880, 1890, 1900. 

Negro Population 

Cities of at least 100,000 inhabitants. 1880. 1890. 1900. 

At least 100,000 41.8 46.2 53.2 

25,000 to 100,000 7.2 6.9 9.6 

8,000 to 25,000 6.6 8.0 6.5 

4,000 to 8,000 6.3 7.4 4.6 

2,500 to 4,000 3.0 2.8 

At least 4,000 61.9 68.5 73.9 

At least 2,500 71.5 76.7 

Country 38.1 28.5 23.3 

The Negro city population has been steadily increas- 
ing-; while the rural population has actually decreased, 
there being 10,000 less Negroes in rural districts than in 
i860. 

Forty years ago there were less Negroes in the large 
cities, largely because there were fewer large cities. In 
i860 five cities in the state had 100,000 or more inhabi- 
tants : viz. : Allegheny, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Read- 
ing, having a total population of 680,011, of whom 25,835 
were Negroes. At the same time, only one city had as 
many as 10,000 Negroes; two cities having between 1,000 
and 10,000 and only eight places in the state contained more 
than five hundred Negroes. They were as follows: Alle- 
gheny, 690 Negroes; Pittsburg, 1,154; West Chester, 561; 
Carlisle, 509; Harrisburg, 1,321; Chambersburg, 524; Co- 
lumbia, 648; and Philadelphia, 22,185. In 1900 there were 
forty-three places in the state which had five hundred or 
more Negroes. 

While the total Negro population of the cities has 
grown much more rapidly than the white population in 
the past forty years, it has not spread over so many com- 
munities as the white population. More than half of the 



64 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

Negroes of the state are in Philadelphia and Pittsburg, 
while these cities contain only a fourth of the total popu- 
lation. Excepting Pittsburg and Philadelphia, the Negro 
population is scattered over the state in small aggrega- 
tions, chiefly in the southern and eastern sections. 

Philadelphia increased during the forty years from 
22,185 to 62,613 or 182 per cent.; Pittsburg increased from 
1,154 to 17,040, which is more than 1,372 per cent.; Harris- 
burg increased 211 per cent. ; Allegheny, 379 per cent. ; Ches- 
ter City had 417 Negroes in i860 and West Chester had 
561. In 1900, Chester's Negro population had increased to 
4,403, or 950 per cent.; and that of West Chester to 1,777, 
or 247 per cent, during forty years. Some few communities 
had made but slight increase. Carlisle, York and Wash- 
ington just a little more than doubled their Negro popula- 
tion, while Norristown and Reading lacked a little of 
doubling theirs. Chambersburg's Negro population in- 
creased less than fifty per cent, and that of Columbia actu- 
ally decreased thirty-five per cent. Some towns which in 
i860 had no Negroes whatever or a very few had a con- 
siderable Negro population in 1900; Scranton had only one 
Negro in i860, but 521 in 1900. No Negroes were returned 
in i860 for Braddock. Lancaster had 29 in i860, and 777 
in 1900. For Homestead, McKeesport, Steelton, Union- 
town, Wilkes-Barre or Williamsport, no Negroes are re- 
turned in i860, while in 1900, two of these cities, Williams- 
port and Steelton, had more than 1,000 Negroes, and each 
of the others more than 500 Negroes. 

Within the cities the Negroes are more or less segre- 
gated. In Philadelphia, the largest groups of Negroes are 
in the 7th and 30th wards, which contained in 1900 10,462 
and 5,242 Negroes respectively. The segregated commu- 
nities were formed naturally ; the first Negroes who set- 



A Study In Economic History 65 



tied for themselves settled in the places which they could 
secure employment. Others moved near them and so 
on, until there was a so-called settlement of Negroes. Race 
feeling, common interests, common bearing of racial prej- 
udice, were among the things which tended to keep the 
Negroes together. But the home-owning and the more 
prosperous Negroes are, as a rule, moving out of the dis- 
tinctively Negro neighborhood. In Philadelphia, west of 
15th street and south of Bainbridge, in Elmwood and Ger- 
mantown, a large number of the better class of Negroes 
have settled within the past ten years. The largest num- 
ber of home-owners is outside of the most densely settled 
Negro neighborhoods. All except one of the large churches 
have moved from what was once the largest Negro dis- 
trict, but which is now chiefly inhabited by foreigners. The 
only one of the old churches which holds its original posi- 
tion is Bethel, A. M. E. Church, which is now entirely sur- 
rounded by Jews. 

In the various cities the Negro population is fairly 
well distributed. There are wards which have a large pro- 
portion of Negroes, but in no city is there a ward which 
is composed principally of Negroes. Often, however, the 
Negro population is cut into by a ward line, and the segre- 
gation does not appear as much as it really is. In Phila- 
delphia, the second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and 
thirtieth wards are contiguous and form the largest Ne- 
gro settlement. In this district there were 25,317 Negroes 
in 1900. This district includes a part of the central busi- 
ness district of the city. The next largest district includes 
contiguous portions of the fourteenth, fifteenth, twentieth 
and twenty-ninth wards, which in 1900 had a population of 
10,365 Negroes. There are other smaller districts included, 
principally within a single ward. It is worthy of notice 

5 



66 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

that in none of these wards do the Negroes comprise a 
majority of the population. The seventh ward had 10,462 
Negroes in 1900, but also 28,137 whites; the other wards 
had a larger proportion of whites. 

But one can get a very hazy idea of the segregation 
of Negroes if he depends upon the figures given by the 
wards as Hoffman does in his treatise on the Negro. For 
in wards the distribution of the Negro population is often 
very regular. In the eighth ward in Philadelphia, one of 
the richest resident, wards of the city, the whites are gen- 
erally in the western part and the Negroes in the eastern. 
This eastern section is generally referred to as the Negro 
section, yet Negroes are in a minority, and there are only 
three of the seventeen voting divisions where the Negro 
vote is larger than the white vote. In the seventh ward, 
the Negroes are more generally distributed, but by no 
means evenly so. In 1906, there were 2,687 Negro voters 
in this ward, an average of about one hundred voters to a 
political precinct. But in eleven of the twenty-seven divi- 
sions the number of Negroes who vote was below the aver- 
age, and in nine of these there were less than fifty Negro 
voters. All of which goes to show that although the 
seventh ward has the largest population of Negroes, it is 
not necessarily a "Negro ward." 

The extent of the segregation of the Negro population 
cannot be shown by wards, but is as to streets or parts 
of streets. For example, the Negro population is densest 
in Philadelphia on Lombard and South streets, from 
Seventh to Twenty-third, and on the cross streets between 
these two ; in Pittsburg, on Wylie Avenue, Webster street 
and Bedford Avenue, from Washington to Herron Avenue, 
and in Harrisburg, the neighborhood of South and Short 
streets. These are rightly called Negro settlements. 



A Study In Economic History 67 



Throughout the larger cities there are often found from 
half a dozen to a score of Negro families in one block, or 
on adjacent streets, while there are many blocks in the 
neighborhood in which no Negroes live. 

This partial segregation of Negroes is not, however, a 
thing peculiar to them. On the one hand, they live in 
nearly every ward in the cities above named and in no one 
do they constitute a majority, though probably the next 
census will give the Negroes a majority in the seventh 
ward in Philadelphia. 

They are not more segregated than the Jews, and the 
Italians in Philadelphia. On the other hand, it seems to 
be the tendency for the incoming Negroes to settle in those 
parts of the city where the older members of the race have 
already settled. This tendency has been aided much by 
the real estate and renting agents who find that whites do 
not care to live next door to Negroes, as a rule, just as 
native Americans do not like to live next door to Italians, 
or Jews, or Slavs. There is no evidence that the Negro 
will spread over a greater area of the cities, but at the same 
time, the Negro districts will continue to grow. 

The largest section in which the race is said to be 
segregated is, however, more characteristic of poverty than 
of race. Negroes and Jews ; Irish and Italians ; and other 
classes composing a large proportion of the poor, live more 
or less together. In Philadelphia, the real poverty quarter, 
so far as the Negroes are concerned, is really from Front 
street to 16th street and west ; from Pine to Fitzwater. But 
only the eastern part of this was included in the "Slums" 
in the Seventh Special Report of the Commissioner of La- 
bor. The slum district of Philadelphia was, according to 
this report on the "Slums of the Great Cities," in 1894, as 
follows : 



68 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

Philadelphia. — (i) 

Starting from the corner of Front and South streets, 
along South to Fourth, along Fourth to Bainbridge, along 
Bainbridge to Front and along South to Ronaldson, along 
Ronaldson to Bainbridge, along Bainbridge to Eighth, 
along Eighth to Fitzwater, along Fitzwater to Fallon, along 
Fallon to Christian, along Christian to Eighth, along Eighth 
to Marriott, along Marriott to Fifth, along Fifth to German, 
along German to Passyunk Avenue, along Passyunk Ave- 
nue to Bainbridge, along Bainbridge to Fifth and along 
Fifth to South. 

In this slum district of Philadelphia were 17,060 per- 
sons, as follows : 16,612 whites or 97.38 per cent. ; 348 blacks 
or 2.04 per cent. ; 84 mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons, or 
0.40 per cent. ; and 16 Chinese, or 0.09 per cent. The great 
majority of the Negroes of Philadelphia do not live in the 
typical slum district, notwithstanding Negroes in a measure 
are segregated and many of them do live in the slums. As 
a rule in these slums, the Negroes do not live in the worst 
sections. Gradually they have moved from the lower east- 
ern side further toward the banks of the Schuylkill River 
and many hundreds of them to-day occupy houses which a 
few years back were occupied by well-to-do whites. Many 
of these houses are old and old-fashioned but most of them 
are better than those in which the Negroes formerly lived. 
On the other hand, the houses nearer the Delaware, about 
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Spruce, Pine, Lombard, 
South and the smaller streets and courts and alleys, in 
which the generations of Negroes before the war, and the 
first generation after the war lived, have been taken by 
the Italians and Jews, who therefore, live in the main, under 
worse conditions than the blacks now live. The same is 
practically true in Pittsburg. 



A Study In Economic History 69 

There is also a peculiar kind of segregation in blocks 
where the better-to-do classes live. For many years the 
Negroes have been a servant class, and have lived in the 
houses of the employers or very close to them. So, in Phila- 
delphia to-day, while on Spruce street and Walnut street, 
many of the wealthiest Philadelphians live, just behind 
them the Negroes are on Pine, Addison and Lombard 
streets in parallel lines. In West Philadelphia, the well- 
to-do whites live on Walnut and Chestnut streets, the Ne- 
groes live on the small streets just behind them. Some- 
times the Negroes are completely surrounded by the whites 
as in the Eighth ward, where the whites live on the wide 
outside streets and Negroes on the smaller inside streets. 

The Negro rural districts : The rural population of 
Pennsylvania in 1900 was 2,315,932 or 36.7 per cent, of the 
whole. The rural population of Negroes was 26.1 per cent. 
as against 38.1 per cent, twenty years before. In some of 
the counties, especially those where there is no large city, 
such as Clarion, Cumberland, Franklin, the Negro popu- 
lation is falling off. 

In more than half the counties of the state, the Negro 
population has fallen off in the last twenty years, and 
the increase of the population has been mainly in the cities. 
In many places where Negroes were settled on farms be- 
fore the war, there has either been a large death rate or 
heavy immigration to the cities. Columbia county was 
one of the counties in which many Negroes were largely 
settled before the war. In 1900, there were only 125 Ne- 
groes in the county. Negroes who formerly owned farms 
have given them up to move to the city. 

As to sex, there is in this state an excess of Negro 
males over Negro females. There were in 1900, 79,384 Ne- 
gro males and 77,497 Negro females in the state, or a pro- 



10 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

portion of 977 females to 1000 males. The excess of males 
in Pennsylvania is in accord with the condition of the 
country at large. In Philadelphia there is an excess of 
females ; in Pittsburg of males, due chiefly to the eco- 
nomic opportunities of the sexes in the two cities. 

OCCUPATIONS OF NEGROES. 



What is the status of the Negro laborer in the North in 
general, and in Pennsylvania in particular? Upon the answer 
to this question depends very largely the view we shall be 
forced to take as to whether or not the Negro will be able to 
survive the competition of free labor. The North is the 
severest testing place for the Negro, not simply because of 
its climate but also because of its labor traditions and organ- 
izations. In the South, the Negroes have had a practical 
monopoly of certain forms of labor, but in the North they 
find the field already occupied by the world's best and most 
aggressive workmen ; they find higher standards in nearly 
all lines of work and tremendous organizations for the pur- 
pose of reducing competition and controlling workmen and 
apprentices. 

Slavery, no matter what its industrial benefits were, did 
not demand of its workmen accuracy of detail and quickness 
in execution ; nor did it cultivate that creative imagination so 
necessary in highly organized communities for successful com- 
petition. It left the laborers illiterate, largely dependent, and 
shiftless, except under outside pressure. It was therefore, to 
be expected that such a class of laborers would be found among 
the least efficient of a country's workingmen. If in the North 



A Study In Economic History 11 

any of them or their children have been able to rise to skill 
and self-direction ; to success as business men, professional 
men, skilled artisans, organizers and promoters, this, of it- 
self is a hopeful omen for the industrial future of the race. 

The Negroes are truly a working people. Of the en- 
tire 8,833,994 Negroes in the country, 3,992,337 were engaged 
in gainful occupations, in 1900 ; that is, 452 out of every 1,000. 
Of the 6,415,581 Negroes ten years of age or more, 622 out 
of every 1,000 were gainful workers. On the other hand, 
3J3 of every 1,000 whites in the country, and 486 of every 
1,000 whites ten years of age and older, were engaged in 
gainful occupations. Though the Negroes compose but 11.4 
per cent, of the country's entire population, they are 13.7 per 
cent, of its entire working force. 

In the country at large a greater percent of Xegro males' 
than white males, are engaged in gainful occupations in every 
age period, except from 25 to 44. For the period from 10 to 
15 years more than twice as many Negro children are at work 
proportionately as whites. Among the females there is a 
very striking contrast, proportionately two and a half times 
as many Negro females being in gainful occupations as white 
females. Of female children more than four times as many 
Negroes as whites proportionately are engaged in gainful oc- 
cupations, and about the same proportion holds good for the 
females between 55 and 65 years of age, and for 65 years and 
over. 

Negro workers in Pennsylvania : According to the census 
of 1900,, there were in the State of Pennsylvania 4,885,479 
persons of ten years of age and over. Of these 2,448,589 or 
50.1 per cent, were engaged in gainful occupations. The Ne- 
groes of Pennsylvania, as the Negroes of the country at large, 
furnish a larger proportion of workers than their number 
would indicate ; for while they are only 2.5 per cent, of Penn- 



72 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

sylvania's total population, they were 3.3 per cent, of the total 
gainful workers in this State. 

According to the census in 1900, 80,429 Negroes who 
were engaged in gainful occupations in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania were distributed by sex as follows : 

TABLE FROM THE CENSUS OF 1900. 

Males. Females Total. 



Occupations. No. 


% 


No. 


% 


No. 


% 


Agricultural 












pursuits . . 3,656 


6.6 


40 


0.2 


3.696 


4-6 


Professional 












service . . . 936 


1.6 


276 


1.1 


1,212 


i-5 


Domestic and 












personal 












service . . .33,030 


59-2 


22,830 


92.7 


55,86o 


69.4 


Trade & trans- 












portation . 9,033 


16.2 


201 


.8 


9,234 


11.6 


Mfg. & mech. ' 












pursuits . . 9,150 


16.4 


1,277 


5-2 


10,427 


12.9 



Total ..55,805 1 00.0 24,624 1 00.0 80,429 1 00.0 

Ninety-three out of every hundred females, and fifty-nine 
out of every hundred Negro males of the State are in domestic 
and personal service. Among the occupations most largely 
followed by Negro unskilled laborers who comprise 65 per 
cent, of this entire group, are servants and waiters, barbers, 
and janitors. These four classes of labor comprise more than 
96 per cent, of all the Negro domestic and personal service 
workers. While most of this service is unskilled an increas- 
ing amount of skill is being required ; and in some cases, an 
apprenticeship must be served, as in the case of barbers, 
cooks, nurses, stewards. Some, however, require capital, 
and though the service is personal, often a lucrative busi- 
ness is conducted, as in the case of barbers, caterers, hotel 
and boarding house keepers, restaurant and saloon keepers. 



A Study In Economic History 13 

The specific occupations chiefly followed by Negro females 
are those of servants, waiters, laundresses and house-keep- 
ers. These comprise more than 93 per cent, of the whole 
body of Negro females in domestic and personal service. 
Servants and waitresses alone are 78 per cent, of the total. 
Domestic service is occupied largely by the newcomers 
from the South. What is true of domestic service, common- 
ly so called, is true of common unskilled labor. There are 
more than forty employment agencies in Philadelphia, 
which make a specialty of supplying Negro domestic ser- 
vants, some of them having representatives in the South- 
ern cities and towns who secure women and men of all 
descriptions and send them to the North. These agencies 
supply the city and the surrounding country with a large pro- 
portion of the servants. Most of these agencies agree that 
the vast majority of the people whom they supply are immi- 
grant Negroes ; that the native Negroes do not care to work 
in domestic service ; and also that the average house-holder 
prefers a Southern Negro, because she is cheaper and more 
docile. The twelve per cent, of native Negroes who are in 
domestic service are generally in a higher grade of service than 
the immigrant Negro. 

There are many kinds of this service in which a high 
grade of intelligence is needed. Several Negroes in the State 
have invented and patented devices for improving the labor 
of the household worker. A young Philadelphian, named 
Eooker, has taken the lead in this, having invented and patent- 
ed a dish washer which has an extensive sale; also devices for 
cleaning windows and scrubbing floors. He has organized 
a cleaning company, which employs from ten to fifteen per- 
sons regularly cleaning windows, marble fronts, etc. Another 
Negro, George Frank Hall, has invented and patented what 
he calls the "Kitchen King," combining in a single utensil 



74 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

the functions of the whip and bowl, puree brush, sieve and 
potato masher. Among other devices invented by Negroes in 
Pennsylvania for domestic service are an apple and potato 
parer, and a refrigerator by Alfred Cornell, a caterer; a device 
for keeping fumes of a cooking stove from spreading over 
the kitchen, by P. C. Slowe. 

There has been but little attempt to train Negro servants. 
The oldest institution doing work of any kind in this line is 
Avery Institute, of Allegheny, which reaches a very few per- 
sons. Some sporadic work is done by organizations of women 
but there is nothing effective in the State. The Association 
for the Protection of Colored Women, in Philadelphia, started 
in 1905, and the Home for Working W T omen, in Pittsburg, 
reach a few servants, but because of the very limited resources 
they are able to do but little in the way of effective training 
of household workers. They do more on the moral and social 
sides than on the educational and economic sides. In more 
skilled grades of domestic or personal service, such as cater- 
ing, barbering and hair-dressing, there is some training given 
to apprentices in shops and private businesses conducted by 
members of the race. 

Since the Civil War there have been many changes in 
the relation of the Negro to domestic service. Time was when 
the most lucrative occupations open to Negroes were in domes- 
tic service, in which were most of the best Negroes in the 
State. With enlarging opportunities this is no longer true. 
The Xegroes of best training and circumstances are going 
into this kind of service to a much less extent than formerly. 
Many of the sons and daughters of those who held most 
prominent places as domestic servants are now in business 
or in professions. The native born Negroes of Philadelphia 
comprise about 37 per cent, of the total Negro population, 
while they are only about 12 per cent, of Negro domestic 



A Study In Economic History 75 



servants. The first Negro lawyer of Philadelphia is the son 
of a successful Negro caterer, and his son is a successful 
physician, and one of the largest property holders among 
Negroes in the State. The son of another caterer is a suc- 
cessful physician, and a daughter of a barber has won more 
than a local reputation as an artist, having studied several 
years in Paris. Her design of the Negro historical group 
for the Jamestown Exposition attracted wide attention and 
won for her a medal of honor. 

The economic changes during the past generation have 
brought new opportunities to the Negroes of Pennsylvania, 
and have helped to raise many of them from domestic ser- 
vice, which has caused an apparent loss in this field. In the 
barber's trade it is often asserted that the Negro has lost 
ground. This is true if it means that they have lost proportion- 
ately ; for there are proportionately fewer Negro barbers than 
formerly. In no large cities do Negroes have a monopoly of 
this trade. There has been no absolute loss in numbers how- 
ever, but rather a gain. There is now a greater demand for 
Negro barbers than existed a generation ago. Shaving and 
hair-cutting are now a necessity even to many laborers, as 
well as to the business and professional men. That being the 
case, a great many more persons are needed in the barbers' 
trade which is made a business, that whites as well as Ne- 
groes have entered. To-day Negroes have a monopoly of the 
Negro trade, which alone supports in the State more than one 
hundred and fifty shops, which is probably larger than the 
whole number of shops conducted by Negroes before the 
war. Negroes also have a fair proportion of the patronage 
of whites. In nearly every large city in the State there are 
first-class shops conducted by Negroes exclusively for whites. 
In the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, at both Philadelphia 
and Pittsburg, there are Negro barbers. The rise in the stan- 



76 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

dard of the barbers' trade has been great within forty vears. 
To enter the business now requires more than mere knowledge 
of the art of shaving and hair-cutting. Much capital can be 
invested in the business. There has also been large improve- 
ment in the sanitary standards. 

What is true of barbers is true of caterers. When cater- 
ing was merely a species of house service, the competition with 
whites was not great. The caterer was the cook and butler to 
the fashionables, and largely had the monopoly of a trade, 
wdiich others did not very greatly desire. But to-day, catering 
is not house service in the common sense ; it is a business 
which requires not only skill and capital but business ability 
and connections. The great cook is not the caterer of today, 
but he may be hired by the monied man who knows how to 
organize and advertise a catering business. Thus Negroes 
have lost much of the prestige they once had in Philadelphia, 
but they do more catering today than they ever did. There 
are more Negro caterers in this city than ever before — over 
ioo. They now have practically the monopoly of a growing 
trade among Negroes (though not as exclusively as the bar- 
bers), and have been able to hold much of the other trade. 
The best caterers have survived the changes in their trade and 
have opened business on a large scale, as represented by 
Augustine and Baptiste, and John S. Trower, in Philadelphia; 
and Spriggs and John T. Writt & Co., in Pittsburg. These 
men do a much larger business than any of the ante-bellum 
caterers in their best days. But they are less conspicuous 
and have less of a monopoly. 

If it is true that the Negroes are in domestic service 
proportionately less today than formerly, this is not a loss 
but a gain and is significant of a wider range of economic 
opportunities for the race. 

The Professions : The professions may be classed among 



A Study In Economic History 77 



the new occupations for Negroes. Although there have been 
individual Negroes in different professions for many years, 
yet, as a class, the Negro professional group in Pennsylvania 
is the growth of the present generation. 

As to the particular professions there were at the census 
of 1900, in Pennsylvania, 91 actors and professional show- 
men and women; 411 clergymen ; 20 dentists; 24 lawyers; 258 
musicians and teachers of music; 12 government officers; 60 
physicians and surgeons; 222 teachers and professors in 
schools and colleges; and 114 miscellaneous professions. To 
every 1,000 Negroes in the State there were 6.3 actors and 
actresses, 26 clergymen, 1.2 dentists, 1.5 lawyers, 16.4 musi- 
cians, .8 government officials, 3.8 physicians, 14.2 teachers. 

Excluding the preaching and teaching professions, the 
North has a larger actual number of Negroes engaged in pro- 
fessional service than the South, and proportionately there is 
a larger number even of teachers and clergymen in the North. 
The profession earliest developed was that of the minister. 
Ministers of color were always the chief preachers to their 
people. The minister goes back to Africa and is the connect- 
ing link between heathenism and Christianity. A hundred 
years ago Richard Allen and Absalom Jones were ordained 
ministers in the Methodist and Episcopal Churches respec- 
tively in Philadelphia. 

Some of the most intelligent men of the Negro race are 
to be found among its ministers, who in this State include 
men who were trained at the University of Pennsylvania, 
Oberlin College, the University of Chicago, Princeton Uni- 
versity, Newton Theological Seminary, Boston University, 
Lincoln University, and other well equipped institutions. 
There are among them men who have studied abroad at the 
Universities of Berlin, Liepzig, Bonn, Paris, Cambridge and 
Rome. The Theological department in one of the largest 



78 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Negro institutions, Howard University, Washington, D. C, 
was practically founded by a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. 
J. B. Reeve, now for nearly fifty years a pastor in Philadelphia. 
On the other hand the average intelligence of the ministers 
is somewhat lower than the average of any other of the so- 
called learned professions. This is due to several things. 
In the first place there is no State supervision of the granting 
of ministerial licenses as there is in other professions. The 
State thus permits religious congregations to call ignorant min- 
isters, while it prevents to some extent people from employing 
ignorant persons who would teach or practice law or medicine. 
Thus it is difficult to raise the ministry more rapidly than the 
laity. In the second place, outside of a few large churches, 
the salaries are smaller than the necessities of life demand. 
Other opportunities, offering larger pecuniary returns and as 
much social prestige, are being gradually opened and many 
men of that best class that first entered the ministry are find- 
ing places in these new fields. On the whole, however, the 
ministry is gaining in intelligence and is said to be consider- 
ably superior to the ministry of a generation ago. 

The Negro physicians in the State now number about 
seventy and on the whole are an intelligent body, representing 
the best elements of Negro life. As early as 1838, a Negro 
physician and dentist were reported in the Register of Trades 
in Philadelphia. In 184 1 several physicians were reported by 
the author of the "Sketches of Colored Society." James Dur- 
ham, a Pennsylvania Negro, was taken South to New Orleans, 
where he became very proficient in medicine in the eighteenth 
century. In Philadelphia there are thirty-two graduated Ne- 
gro physicians, three of whom are women. Among them are 
graduates of the Medical Department of Howard University, 
the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Jeffer- 
son Medical College, Hahnemann Medical College, the Medico- 



A Study In Economic History 79 



Chirurgical College, Shaw University. Several have taken 
post-graduate courses, one of whom did so in the University 
of London. In 1896 the highest general average ever made 
before the Pennsylvania State Board of Medical Examiners, 
was made by a Negro, Robert Jones Abele, a native of Phil- 
adelphia, and a graduate of Hahnemann Medical College, 
Philadelphia. In Pittsburg there are sixteen physicians, six 
dentists and two pharmacists, graduated as follows: 5 from 
the Western University of Pennsylvania, 5 from Howard 
University, 2 from Shaw University, 1 from the Medico- 
Chirurgical College, Philadelphia, 1 from the University of 
Pennsylvania, and 1 from Harvard University. Harrisburg 
has 5 physicians, West Chester 1, Coatesville 1, Steelton 1, 
Chester 2, Washington 1, and West Grove 2. About one- 
third of the Negro physicians are college graduates holding 
the degree of A.B. or B.S. Among the institutions from 
which they graduated are Harvard, Lincoln, Wilberforce, 
Howard and Shaw Universities. The oldest physician prac- 
ticing in Pittsburg is a native of that city and has been prac- 
ticing more than thirty years ; another has practiced twenty 
years, and another eighteen years ; three from ten to fifteen 
years, six from five to ten years, nine under five years, three 
of whom have practiced less than two years. Negro physi- 
cians have not had free access to all hospitals, though there 
have been Negroes assisting in Hahnemann, Polyclinic and 
Jefferson Hospitals, in Philadelphia. In 1895 the Frederick 
Douglass Hospital, of Philadelphia, was established. Nathan 
F. Mossell, M.D., a native of Canada, and a graduate of Lin- 
coln University and the University of Pennsylvania, was the 
chief spirit in the founding of that institution, and is still the 
Medical Director. During the last twelve years the Negro 
population has nearly doubled, and the demands for increased 
hospital room led to the opening in April, 1906, of the Mercy 



80 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Hospital and School for Nurses, in Philadelphia. A hospital 
is to be opened in the near future in Pittsburg. 

The Negro lawyer does not have the opportunity to suc- 
ceed that the Negro clergymen and physicians have had. 
These latter practically have the practice of their people, but 
not so the Negro- lawyer. He is still a pioneer and at a dis- 
advantage, in that his practice is not private, or among his 
own people, but he must plead before a white judge often 
against a white lawyer and generally, with a white jury. Yet, 
there is but little complaint on the part of the Negro lawyers. 
The average Negro coming from the South and knowing 
how great a handicap the lawyer of his race suffers in that 
section, hesitates long before employing a Negro lawyer. 
There are not more than a third as many Negro lawyers in 
Pennsylvania as physicians. In Philadelphia there are four- 
teen ; in Pittsburg five ; in Harrisburg, one. 

Negro teachers are increasing rapidly each year. In 
1840, there were 36 in the State; the census of 1900 reported 
222. Negro teachers found employment as far back as the 
eighteenth century. In 1793, "The Committee for the Improve- 
ing the Condition of Free Blacks," suggested the opening of 
a new school for Negro children and stated that they had 
found a black woman well qualified for a mistress of such a 
school. In 1838, there were ten private schools in Philadel- 
phia, conducted by Negro teachers. From its beginning in 
1837, the teachers for The Institute for Colored Youths, have 
been principally Negroes. As long as the State recognized 
separate Negro public schools, many of the teachers of them 
were Negroes, and after the legal abolition of separate schools 
in 1881 many Negro teachers were retained. During the past 
decade Negro teachers have been rapidly increasing in public 
schools. This is due largely to the immigration of Negroes 
from the South. Though Negro schools have no legal exist- 



A Study In Economic History 81 

cnce, Negro teachers, as a rule, teach only Negro children. 
There are more than sixty Negro public school teachers in 
Philadelphia. 

There are more than a score of journalists in the State., 
These, with one or two exceptions are on Negro periodicals. 
The first Negro newspaper in Pennsylvania of which there is 
any record, was published in 1838, by William Whipper and 
others. The next attempt was in Philadelphia in 1841, when 
Robert Purvis and others started the "Demosthenian Shield," 
The oldest Negro publication now in existence in America is 
published in this State — "The Christian Recorder," the organ 
of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was start- 
ed in Philadelphia in 1852. There were in 1908 three mag- 
azines and about twelve weekly papers, published by Ne- 
groes in the State, chiefly in Philadelphia. Since the first 
attempt, seventy years ago, there have been probably fifty at- 
tempts at newspapers and periodicals, the most of which have 
failed for the lack of patronage. In Pittsburg, the first at- 
tempt was in 1848 when the Christian Herald was published 
and of a dozen ventures since then, none have been able to sur- 
vive as long as five years. Pittsburg now has an interesting 
weekly paper — the Courier. The attempts at daily papers have 
been all short-lived. The latest was in 1907 when the Phila- 
delphia Tribune attempted to issue a daily. It was soon 
discontinued as a daily, but is still running as a weekly as 
it has for twenty-five years. Though the illiteracy of the 
Negroes of the State is very small and though there are at 
least 200,000 Negroes in the State, the combined circulation of 
all the Negro newspapers in the State would hardly reach 25,- 
000 copies per week. The Negro newspapers have not as yet 
devoted much attention to the economic life of the people to 
whom they are supposed to cater. They give but slight at- 
tention to business, to trade, to industrial life and industrial 

6 



82 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

opportunities. In this, they are not leaders of thought, but 
rather followers. They are devoted chiefly to church news, 
secret society news and personals. Now and then, they dis- 
cuss politics and "The Negro Question." Their chief handi- 
cap is lack of capital. Negroes are not employed largely in the 
mercantile life of the State outside of menial positions. This 
is due chiefly to their race, for as a general rule they do not 
have the opportunity. Where civil service is operated, how- 
ever, Negroes always have better opportunity. In the Post 
Office for instance, the Negroes have been able to secure em- 
ployment. In Philadelphia there were in 1907, 175 Negroes in 
the Post Office: — 126 clerks, 31 letter carriers, 16 special de- 
livery messengers and 2 laborers; in Pittsburg, 65 were in the 
Post Office; in Harrisburg, there were 5 Negroes; in Wilkes- 
Barre, 2 ; in Oxford and Coatesville, 1 each. In the employ of 
the city of Philadelphia there were 126 Negroes in Novem- 
ber 1907; in the city of Pittsburg, 5 messengers at $900 per 
year ; 26 policemen ; 1 chemical engine company, of six mem- 
bers ; 1 city detective; and janitors and laborers. Most of the 
larger cities have one or more Negroes holding places under 
the civil service. 

BUSINESS ENTERPRISES AMONG NEGROES. 



The Negro entrepreneur existed as far back as there is any 
reliable information. In the registry of trades of Philadelphia 
in 1838, 344 Negroes — 133 women and 211 men — were re- 
ported as being in business for themselves. Most of these 
were in the humblest kinds of business, such as vending, 
dressmaking, boot and shoe repairing, hair-dressing, barbering. 



A Study In Economic History 83 



and jobbing in various building trades. In 1849, another ac- 
count revealed 166 shopkeepers and traders among Negro men 
of 21 years of age and over. 

A complete enumeration of the business ventures in the 
principal cities of the State has been attempted and though 
only approximately correct, the results are not without value. 
In Philadelphia, the Colored Directory for 1908, gave more 
than a thousand Negroes conducting nearly a hundred dif- 
ferent kinds of business. In Pittsburg, an enumeration dis- 
closed more than 125 Negroes in more than fifty different 
kinds of business. In Harrisburg, .an incomplete enumeration 
showed about fifty Negroes in business, the principal busi- 
nesses being barber, etc. The Colored Directory of Philadel- 
phia for 1908, by R. R. Wright, Jr., Ernest Smith, gives a 
complete list of the businesses conducted by Negroes in that 
city. 

There are probably 2,500 persons in the State who belong 
to the entrepreneur class, most of them being engaged in small 
businesses. Doubtless many of them are not able to receive 
from their business any larger amount than they would if they 
were regular wage-earners. The only difference between them 
and the wage-earner is, that they have more control over their 
time. The largest number of persons is in the barbering busi- 
ness. In Philadelphia alone, there are 116 barbering establish- 
ments. In nearly every city or town in the State where there 
are as many as a hundred Negroes, there is such an establish- 
ment especially for the patronage of Negroes. The barbers 
and caterers have already been mentioned. While a few Ne- 
groes run restaurants and cafes for whites exclusively, the 
great mass serve their own race principally. The majority of 
these establishments are small and many of the restaurants 
are ill-kept. But as in the case of barbers, so with the res- 
taurant and cafe, the standard of cleanliness in exclusively 



84 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

colored establishments has had rapid development in the past 
decade. There are ten small hotels in Philadelphia and ten 
in Pittsburg. In both West Chester and Johnstown, one 
of the largest hotels is conducted by a Negro. In the large 
cities the Negro hotel has grown up chiefly for the patronage 
of Negroes, whom the ordinary hotel conducted by whites 
serve with reluctance. These hotels compare favorably with 
hotels of the same size and grade of patronage conducted by 
whites. 

The Negro barber, caterer, the cleaner and hotel keeper, 
are the developments from the Negro domestic servant, and 
are connected directly with the slave regime. There are other 
and newer lines of business in which Negroes had but little 
previous training and into which they have been forced largely 
by necessity. Real estate is one of these. There as 37 real 
estate dealers and 11 building and loan associations in Phila- 
delphia and Pittsburg. These are chiefly the growth of the 
past two decades since the influx of Negro immigrants from 
the South. The loan and investment company and the insur- 
ance company are still later developments requiring larger 
capital and a different kind of ability. 

With the evolution in the kind of business has gone a 
gradual complexity of organization. Most of the first en- 
terprises were private concerns requiring chiefly skill, such 
as the knowledge of shaving, cooking, painting, etc., and but 
small capital. Thus an individual conducted a business alone. 
When the business grew larger and there was a necessity for 
combination, this necessity was met by taking in the wife or 
son or brother. This was the first development of the part- 
nership and is to-day the most prevalent. But with the growth 
of the businesses requiring more skill and capital, than one 
individual possessed, the company was formed, several persons 
coming together with their small capital. The fraternal and 



A Study In Economic History 85 

beneficial societies are the earlier developments along this 
line. With the need for still larger capital and more thorough 
organization came the incorporated business, the oldest of 
which was the building and loan association. The first of 
these in Pennsylvania the Century Building and Loan Asso- 
ciation, was incorporated in 1886. According to the report of 
the Banking and Insurance Commissioners of Pennsylvania 
for 1906, ten of these associations were reported as follows: 

Name of Association 

Afro-American, Pitts. 
Baker, Pitts. 

Banneker, Philadelphia . . 
Berean, Philadelphia 
Century, Philadelphia . . . 
Cherry, Philadelphia . . 
Colored of North Philadel. 
8th Ward S'tlment, Philadel. 
Pioneer, Philadelphia 
William Still, Philadelphia 

Total 9704,380^25 $97,742.51 

There were 970 persons members of these societies of 
whom 382 were females, owning 4,380^4 shares. During the 
year 1906, 25 homes were bought, and $97,742.91 received as 
dues, interest, fines, etc. The assets of these associations were 
reported as $198,587.27. 

The largest of these associations, the Berean Building and 
Loan Association, has purchased since its inception, more_than 
169 homes for its members, at an average cost of $3,000. Dur- 
ing the year 1906, the association received $37,009.06, as dues, 
$18,667.70, on mortgages and loans unpaid, $1,450, from the 
sale of real estate, with other miscellaneous items, making a 
total of $59,077.52. The assets of the association were reported 
at $126,326.80, the undivided profits reported at $21,410.40. 



Year 


Total 


Total 


Homes 




Organ- 


Mem- 


Shares 


Bought 


Receipts 


ized 


bers 




in 1906 




1896 


56 


128 


I 


$ 1,690.06 


1894 


20 


49 


I 


1,99576 


I905 


39 


121 


O 


1,771.78 


1888 


4262,351^ 


i H 


59,077.78 


1886 


19 


66 


1 


4,659-05 


I9O4 


103 


43i 


2 


6,842.02 


I906 


32 


106 





616.72 


I906 


73 


294 





2,091.48 


1888 


140 


705 


4 


17,725.18 


I905 


62 


129 


2 


1,873-34 



86 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

Related to the Building- and Loan Association is the incorpor- 
ated real estate company, of which there are six in Philadel- 
phia and three in Pittsburg, all of which have been incorporated 
during the past ten years. These associations, owing to a 
wider scope of operation are able to do an even larger busi- 
ness than the building and loan associations. They sell houses 
on the small payment plan, arranging the payments to suit the 
purchasers. One of the most successful of these in Philadel- 
phia has been able to sell houses to parties who make about 
the same monthly payments, they would make if they were 
renting:. Next to the incorporated real estate company comes 
the incorporated insurance company which grew out of the 
sick benefit society. According to the report of the Northern 
Aid Society, incorporated December, 1902, during the first three 
years of its existence, $266,478 of insurance was written up; 
$6,199 of sick claims; and $1,202.36 of death claims paid and 
$10,421.53, paid out to employes. Another, the Keystone Aid 
Society, also incorporated in 1902, employs 47 persons, has 
branch offices in Coatesville, Chester, Bristol and Pittsburg, 
and has insured 15,700 persons. Among other incorporated 
businesses are, six cemetery companies, four publishing com- 
panies, two loan companies, two grocery companies, one steam 
laundry, one excavating company, one department store, and 
one bank. 

During 1906, there were 18 new business companies in- 
corporated in Philadelphia. In Pittsburg, a syndicate has es- 
tablished four drug stores during the past four years. 

The test of the business ability is not the launching of an 
enterprise so much as continuing it over a period of years. A 
study therefore of the number of years which Negro busi- 
nesses have endured is highly important. It has not been pos- 
sible to obtain information concerning every establishment, but 



A Study In Economic History 



81 



a tabulation of 283 enterprises in Philadelphia and Pitts- 
burg is here given : 

Phila. Pitts. Total 



Number of years 

established. 
Under 1 year 

1 year 

2 years 

3 years 

4 years 

5 to 7 years 
8 to 10 years 
ir to 15 years 
16 to 20 years 
21 to 25 years 
26 to 30 years 
31 to 40 years 

40 years and over 

Total 



29 

23, 
12 

22 

15 
35 
14 
14 

19 

6 

10 

5 
8 



Pitts. 

13 

10 

6 

7 

5 

10 

6 

7 
2 

1 
2 
1 
1 



42 

33 
18 

29 

20 

45 
20 

21 

21 

7 

12 

6 

9 



212 



71 28 3 

Of 283 establishments, 42 had been established less than 
one year, and seventy-two less than two years; 18 had been 
established two years and 29 for three years, being a total of 
122 establishments of three years' standing or less. These may 
be said to represent the businesses in the experimental stage. 
They comprise about two-fifths of the total number of busi- 
nesses among Negroes in the State. The 85 establishments 
which have continued from four to ten years, comprise about 
thirty per cent, of the total, and may be said to have passed 
the experimental stage, and to be in the second stage of the 
competition for permanency. Of those over ten years old, 76 
or thirty per cent., which may be said to be firmly established. 
Forty-two of these have been established between ten and 
twenty years, while thirty-four had been established over twenty 
years. Nine establishments had an existence of over forty 
years; eight of them in Philadelphia and one in Pittsburg. 
They included, three caterers, three undertakers, one shoe- 



88 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

maker, one furniture dealer and one hair dresser. In Alle- 
gheny, there was also a fish dealer whose business had been 
in operation for more than forty years. The oldest continuous 
business in the State is the catering business of Augustine and 
Baptiste on South Fifteenth Street in Philadelphia. In the 
early part of the last century, Robert Bogle, opened a catering 
establishment at the corner of Eighth and Sansom streets, 
Philadelphia, which he conducted very successfully until 1818, 
when the place was taken by Peter Augustin, a West Indian 
immigrant. Augustin conducted the establishment on an en- 
larged scale and he soon had one of the most famous catering 
establishments in America. Upon his death in 1892, the busi- 
ness was conducted by his wife, Marie C. Augustin. A part- 
nership was formed with another West Indian Negro family 
and the firm in recent years has been known as Augustin and 
Baptiste. They own a handsome property at 255-257 South 
Fifteenth Street, the value of which is more than $60,000, and 
are among the largest Philadelphia caterers. Almost a hun- 
dred years ago one Allmond, a cabinet maker, established quite 
a reputation in the city for the quality of his work. Among 
other things, he made coffins. His son followed him in the 
trade and his grandson did the same. During the day of the 
latter the undertaking business took definite shape, became dif- 
ferentiated from that of the cabinet maker and included fu- 
neral directing, embalming and other things having no con- 
nection with the trade of the cabinet maker. This latter 
Negro, opened an undertaking establishment and two of his 
sons took up the business after him. To-day, there are in 
Philadelphia, three undertaking establishments conducted un- 
der their name. In Pittsburg, the oldest Negro business is 
that of hair-dressing and wig-making. In 1837, John Peck, 
a colored minister, who earned his living chiefly as a hair- 
dresser, opened an establishment in the down-town district. 



A Study In Economic History 89 



He was attentive to business and had much of a monopoly of 
what was then a kind of personal service. After he died, in 
1875, his wife conducted the business for twelve years until 
her death in 1887. The business had been located in one place 
during these fifty years of operation. In 1887, however, it was 
removed and the son of Mr. and Mrs. Peck, took charge and 
has conducted it for more than twenty years. The establish- 
ment is located in the business district of Pittsburg, within a 
block of the place where the founder started it in 1837, just 
across the street from Joseph Home's department store and 
within a hundred yards of four other of Pittsburg's largest 
hairdressing and wig-making establishments. It is interesting 
to note, that all of the businesses are to-day larger and more 
prosperous than they were at any time during the life-time 
of their founders. The establishment of Augustin and Bap- 
tiste is larger than that of the famous Peter Augustin in his 
most successful days. The property is valued at more ; the 
equipment is larger ; the number of Negroes to whom employ- 
ment is given is greater ; moreover, the present manager of the 
business, is a business man who plans and conducts the busi- 
ness side of the establishment against severe competition. He 
neither cooks the meals nor waits on the tables, but the famous 
Peter was both cook and waiter. Still the present establish- 
ment has not the reputation which the earlier one had a half 
century ago; no one can say that it is the establishment that 
makes "Philadelphia catering famous all over the country." 
1 his is because the standard in catering has been raised and 
the competition increased, so that the first-class Negro es- 
tablishment of to-day does not attract the attention which 
smaller establishments commanded sixty years ago. 

The solidarity of the Negroes as an employed group is 
gradually being broken up and many of them are becoming em- 
ployers of labor. Many of the best class of Negro families 
employ domestic help. Negro business men are each year em- 



90 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



ploying more of their race. In 1909 in Philadelphia, 199 
Negro firms employed 888 Negroes ; and in Pittsburg 67 firms 
employed 412 Negroes. A fair estimate is that between 9,000 
and 10,000 persons, including proprietors, secure their living 
from Negro businesses. The barbering business gives em- 
ployment to the largest number. Forty-seven Negro barber- 
shops in Philadelphia employed 173 persons. Next come the 
caterers and general contractors, some of whom on occasions 
employ a hundred persons. The insurance business, real es- 
tate companies give employment to stenographers, bookkeepers, 
solicitors, collectors, etc. Fully ninety-five per cent, of the 
bookkeepers, clerks and accountants are in the employ of 
Negro firms. Of the members of the Philadelphia colored wo- 
men's clerks' association only two were employed by whites, 
and these received less wages than some Negro firms paid. 
In some respects, there are greater difficulties in gaining su- 
perior proficiency in mechanical trades than in the professions. 
For the professional man in many instances has the compe- 
tition only of his croup (as for example the minister), and has 
a natural constituency in his race. The Negro teacher, preacher 
and physician, succeed wherever the Negroes congregate in 
large numbers. Then, too, there is every facility in the State 
for the professional education of the Negroes, while there are 
but few opportunities for acquiring a high degree of skill on 
the part of the Negro artisan. There are few industrial or 
trade schools for them in this State, and they are generally 
not admitted as apprentices to the large shops where skilled, 
mechanical trades are taught. Most of the Negroes who fol- 
low skilled trades are immigrants from the South or the West 
Indies, and learned their trades outside of Pennsylvania. 
Those who control the skilled trades have jealously guarded 
their possession and have not given Negroes much opportunity. 
In nearly every study made of the Negro population in the 
State, the difficulty of pursuing skilled mechanical trades has 



A Study In Economic History 91 



been noted. In 1838 the reporter on the occupations of Ne- 
groes in Philadelphia, observed: "We are aware that the 
greater part of them are engaged in the most menial services 
and the severest labor, they are met (in the higher branches of 
labor) with prejudices with which they have to contend, which 
renders it difficult for them to find places for their sons as ap- 
prentices, to learn mechanical trades." In Edward Needles' 
report in 1856 the same sentiment was found still to exist in 
Philadelphia; and a generation later Prof W. E. B. Du Bois 
described "the practical exclusion of the race from the trades 
and industries of the great city of Philadelphia." 

The Centennial Souvenir of the city of West Chester 
speaks of the "first colored high school graduate;" of that city 
as follows: "after his graduation, he tried at several places 
to apprentice himself to learn a trade; though skilled in the 
use of tool and willing to work, he found no employment." 

The chief cause of the exclusion is the fact that the great 
majority of the white workmen refuse to work with Negroes. 
It is not necessary to offer evidences of this here, as Dr. Du 
Bois in his "Philadelphia Negro" has so fully presented the 
case. ' 

Most of the Negroes who work at the mechanical trades 
are either jobbers or work exclusively with Negroes. Some 
who worked at trades in the South, on coming to Philadelphia 
and hearing of the difficulty which Negroes experience in at- 
tempting to follow trades in the State give up the attempt 
without serious effort. In fact, the prevalent opinion among 
Negroes as to the impossibility of pursuing a trade in the 
North, in a very large measure accounts for the scarcity of 
Negroes now in the trades. This is almost as important a 
cause as the attitude of the white workmen, for it keeps the 
Negroes from attempting to embrace the opportunities which 
really exist. 



92 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

Still, there are many Negroes in all parts of the State 
following mechanical trades with varying success. According 
to the census of 1900, 10,427 Negroes were engaged in manu- 
facturing and mechanical pursuits. The principal mechanical 
trades for males having 100 or more Negroes were as fol- 
lows: 

Trades. Number of males in trade. 

Blacksmiths 1^0 

Boot and Shoemakers 105 

Brick and Tile Makers 495 

Carpenters and Joiners 192 

Charcoal, coke and lime burners 525 

Engineers and firemen 436 

Iron and steel workers 1,582 

Brick and Stone Masons 989 

Miners and Quarrymen 1,616 

Painters, Glaziers and Varnishers 137 

Plasterers 106 

Printers, Pressmen, etc 104 

Tobacco and Cigar Factory Operators 157 

Other important occupations reported for Males are : 
bakers, 38; book -binders, 12; bottlers, 8; butchers, 55; glass- 
workers, 63 ; machinists, 74; paperhangers, 88 ; tin plate and tin 
ware workers, 72 ; wire workers, 49. In the list, there are 92 
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits of males given by the 
census of 1900. Of these there are 13 pursuits, in which Ne- 
groes do not appear. These as given are, box-makers (wood), 
button makers, clock and watch makers and repairers, electro- 
platers, lace and embroidery makers, print-work operators, 
shirt, collar and cuff makers, silk mill operators, trunk and lea- 
ther case makers, umbrella and parasol makers and well borers. 
All of these classes of labor are small, none having as many as 
a thousand persons, except watch and clock makers and re- 
pairers and silk mill operatives. It is a fact, however, that 
many of the classes of labor reported as having no Negroes in 



A Study In Economic History 93 



them, in 1900, did have Negroes in 1907. There were in this 
latter year Negro boxmakers, clock and watch makers and re- 
pairers, embroidery makers, piano and organ tuners, shirt, col- 
lar and cuff makers, umbrella makers and well borers. 

In Philadelphia there is one Negro brick-laying contractor, 
who has put up more than fifty houses for himself in the last 
ten years; another, who has erected some residences in the 
suburbs of Holmesburg and another who works under a yearly 
contract to keep several stores and apartment houses in re- 
pair; a firm of plasterers which has plastered over seven hun- 
dred houses within the past four years. The buildings of the 
Downingtown Industrial School, and several Negro churches 
were erected entirely by Negroes; the contractor, on the new 
Congregational Church in Pittsburg was a Negro; and much 
of the work on Rockefeller Hall, Bryn Mawr College, was 
done by Negro mechanics. In the steel works there are large 
numbers of Negro workmen ; all of the puddlers in the Black- 
Diamond Steel and Iron Company in Pittsburg are Negroes; 
in the rolling mills at Reading, Steelton, West Chester, Coates- 
ville, Columbia and other places there are skilled Negro work- 
men. In Clark's Mills, Pittsburg, there are three Negro fore- 
men, having under them as high as twenty men, white, as 
well as black. Concerning the Negro workmen in the Steel 
industry, Mr. Chas. J. Harrah, president of the Midvale Steel 
Company, a successful competitor of the United Steel Corpora- 
tion for the government's armor- plate contracts, testified be- 
fore the Industrial Commission in 1900, as follows : "We have 
fully 800 or 1,000 colored men. The balance are American, 
Irish and Germans. The colored labor we have is excellent. 
They are lusty fellows ; we have some with shoulders twice as 
broad as mine. The men come up here ignorant, totally un- 
tutored and we teach them the benefits of discipline ; we teach 
the colored men the benefit of thrift, and coax them to open a 



94 The Ne£ro In Pennsylvania 

bank account, and he generally does it and in a short time 
has money in it, and nothing can stop him from adding money 
to that bank account. We have no colored men who drink." 
As to friction, Mr. Harrah said, "Not a bit of it. They work 
cheek by jowl with Irish, and when the Irishman has a fes- 
tivity at home, he has the colored men invited. We did it by 
trepidation. We introduced one man at first to .-weep rp 
the yard and we noticed the Irish, Germans, and Americans 
looking at him askance. Then we put in another. Then we 
put them in the boiler-room and then we got them in the open 
hearth and in the forge and gradually we got them everywhere. 
They are intelligent, docile and when they come in as laborers 
unskilled, they gradually become skilled and in the course of 
time, we will make excellent foremen out of them." And he 
added, "there is absolutely no difference between the wages of 
the blacks and the whites." 

The great mass of Negro laborers are unorganized, and 
come in contact but little with the labor union. There are a 
few Negroes in Philadelphia who are members of some of the 
unions ; viz., the carpenters, stone masons, bricklayers, paint- 
ers, cement layers, asphalt pavers, etc. On the other hand, 
there are some unions which do not admit or have not admitted 
Negroes, such as the machinist, locomotive engineers, etc. In 
the more skilled trades, the Negro union laborers number less 
than 200 in Philadelphia, and less than 500 in Pennsylvania. 
Of unskilled labor, the most thoroughly organized group is that 
of the hod-carriers. Throughout the State there are Negro 
hod-carriers. In Philadelphia there is a local union composed 
chiefly of Negroes, with a Negro president. This union, the 
Light Star Lodge, owns a four story brick hall, valued at about 
$20,000. In Pittsburg also the hod-carriers' union is composed 
predominately of Negroes, but is not as large as the 
Philadelphia lodge. Next to the hod-carriers, come the 



A Study In Economic History 95 



miners. All of the Negro miners in the State are union 
men, and members of the United Mine Workers of x\merica. 
These are located chiefly in the western part of the State, hav- 
ing their district headquarters at Pittsburg. The United Mine 
Workers is one of the few unions in which the Negroes igree 
that they receive fair treatment. In some of these miners' 
unions, there are Negro officers, and Negroes are >lways in 
attendance at the annual meetings. 

Negroes have made some attempts at independent organi- 
zations. The most successful of these is that among the hoist- 
ing engineers, steam and gas engineers, started in Pittsburg 
in 1900 and incorporated in 1903 under "The National Asso- 
ciation of Afro-American Steam and Gas Engineers and Skill- 
ed laborers in America. While the intention h to organize 
Negro labor on a racial basis, there is no antagonism to the 
general labor movement. It is merely believed by the promot- 
ers to be better for Negro workmen. This union has been 
of slow growth however. There are only three locals 'n the 
State ; two at Pittsburg, having 50 members, and one at Read- 
ing, In Philadelphia there is an organization of hoisting engi- 
neers, which as yet is not connected with the Pittsburg 
union. There are numerous societies and clubs ?mong Ne- 
groes which are organized along labor lines; but which are 
more social and beneficial clubs than labor unions. The Idgest 
of these is the Hotel Brotherhood, established at Philadelphia 
in 1881, and including present or former hotel employes. It 
pays sick and death benefits, and acts as a kind of clearing 
house for hotel labor. In 1906, the Brotherhood purchased a 
club house at the cost of $15,000. The bell-men, the Pullman 
car porters, the janitors, the private waiters, the caterers, the 
coachmen and others in domestic and personal service, have 
similar but smaller organizations. These organizations serve 
largely as aids in securing work, but have made but little at- 
tempt to regulate wages and apprentices. 



96 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

In and about Pittsburg, are many whose connection with 
the labor unions in the steel industry is interesting and in- 
structive, as it illustrates one aspect of the labor union's attitude 
toward the Negroes. In the early days of the steel industry, 
the Sons of Vulcan, which included puddlers in its membership, 
was organized but limited its membership to whites. About 
1 875 there was a strike in one of the Pittsburg mills; Negro 
non-union puddlers were brought from Richmond, Virginia, 
to break the strike. The next year, in 1876, the Amalgamated 
Association of Iron and Steel Workers was formed. In the 
preamble to its Constitution it declared : "In union there is 
strength, and in the formation of a National Amalgamated As- 
sociation, embracing every iron and steel worker in the coun- 
try, a union founded upon a basis broad as the land in which 
we live, lies our only hope." Still no Negroes were organized. 
A few years later, however, the Negroes were organized both 
in Pittsburg and in the South. Their connection with the 
union, which was at one time, the strongest in the country, has 
not, however, been very satisfactory. 

The general opinion of the Negro workers in the Pitts- 
burg steel mills who were interviewed by the writer, is that the 
unions are a hindrance rather than a help to the Negro. Sev- 
eral have been members and one had been president of a South- 
ern union and a delegate to the National Convention of Steel 
Workers ; some had gone out on strikes for the union. Their 
testimony is summarized as follows: 

1. The organizations out of which the Amalgamated As- 
sociation of Steel and Iron Workers was formed did i~;ot admit 
Negroes. 

2. After the Amalgamated Association was formed, 
white union men refused to work with Negro union men or 
to help protect Negro workmen, thus making union member- 
ship of no industrial value to the Negro workers. 



A Study In Economic History 97 



3. All the new opportunities secured by Negroes have 
been gotten in spite of the union, not with its aid. 

4. Membership was offered to Negroes only after 
they had successfully won their places against unions, and the 
pledges of membership generally broken by the white members. 

In support of the first point, they say no Negro is known 
ever to have been a member of the Sons of Vulcan, the As- 
sociated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel Heaters, or the Iron 
and Steel Roll Hands' Union; and that one of these unions 
had a clause in its constitution which prohibited Negroes from 
membership. Amalgamating these bodies did not lesson 
prejudice. Although the constitution of the amalgamated 1 s- 
sociation, did not put in the "for whites only" clause, but de- 
clared that the union ought to embrace every iron ?nd steel 
worker in the country, it in spirit ignored the Negro. The 
most intelligent leaders may have meant to include Negro 
workers in this, but it was not so understood by the masses. 
In support of the second, several instances are given in which 
union men refused to work with their Negro brethren. One 
of the principal instances of this was the case at Beaver Falls. 
Some Negro workmen, who at their union's request had struck 
in Pittsburg, heard of the need of puddlers, at Beaver Falls, 
and were taken by the white secretary of the union, who tried 
to get work for them there, but the white workmen would not 
work with Negroes despite the pleadings of the secretary, and 
the need of workmen. 

In support of the third statement it is asserted that Negroes 
now work only in non-union mills ; that they secured their op- 
portunity in the Black Diamond mills after they had been ig- 
nored by the union at Beaver Falls, by taking the places of 
strikers ; that they secured their place in Clark's Mills in 1888, 
and in Homestead in 1892, and in most other places by going 
to work after white union men had quit. And they say that 

7 



98 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

only after they had gotten in the Park Bros.' Mill, were thev 
offered membership in the union. The Negroes in Pittsburg 
were organized to insure against them acting as strike breakers, 
i. e., to protect the white unionists, but not particularly to ad- 
vance the cause of the Negroes. The last attempt to organize 
the Negroes was in 1901, when many of them struck at Clark's 
Mill, in order to help maintain the union. The strike failed and 
since then the union has been very weak. Overtures, however, 
are being made to the Negroes to join again. 

The whole history of the labor union situation among iron 
and steel workers has been an attempt of white workmen to 
use Negroes to their advantage without giving corresponding 
advantages. As late as 1905, at a general meeting of the 
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers in 
Cleveland, Ohio, it was resolved that Negroes not be organized, 
or encouraged to learn the trade, as it might inspire Negroes 
from the South to come North and compete with white men. 
At the meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1907, however, there 
seemed to be a change of sentiment, and it was resolved to 
organize Negroes wherever possible. But in 1908 no advance 
along this line had been made in Pennsylvania. 

The hostile or indifferent treatment of Negroes by the 
unions, though quite opposite to that of the United Mine 
Workers, is to a large extent, the basis of opinion among 
Negroes that the unions are opposed to them. And of late 
years this opinion has grown to a very considerable extent. 
When Professor Du Bois wrote his "Philadelphia Negro," h p 
was able to give a large number of instances of Negroes who 
had been refused by unions. But when the present investiga- 
tion was made, ten years later, very few Negroes could be 
found who had recently applied to the unions for admission. 
As Professor Du Bois found, however, the present inves- 
tigator also found a very pronounced opinion prevalent among 



A Study In Economic History 99 



the Negroes that they were not welcome in the unions. Now, 
instead of applying for admission to the unions, the Negroes 
take for granted that the unions are hostile and they do not 
seek to join. 

This attitude has the effect of preventing many Negroes 
from attempting to follow their trade. The newcomer who 
has probably worked at the trade of a carpenter in the South 
is informed as soon as he reaches the State, that he cannot 
work at his trade because of the hostility of the labor unions. 
Having probably heard this also before he left the South, after 
a desultory search, he gives up under the impression that the 
union is the cause of his inability to get work at his trade. The 
fact, however, is that it is not always the union as much as 
the increased competition and higher standard of efficiency 
of the more complex community into which he has come. 

The leaders of the labor movement both in Pittsburg and 
in Philadelphia are agreed that there is in theory no hostility on 
the part of the union against the Negro. Most of them see 
clearly what a disadvantage to the labor movement it would 
be to have Negroes hostile to the movement or the movement 
hostile to the Negroes. They complain that the Negroes have 
been used in many instances to injure their cause and they 
know that, with increasing intelligence and skill, Negroes will 
be more capable of retarding the movement for the uplift of 
labor. Most labor leaders have to contend very largely with 
mediocre intelligence, and often gross ignorance among whi.te 
men ; with greed and selfishness, with human nature as it is. 
They claim that as the ordinary white man who joins the 
Christian church is not revolutionized in his idea about the 
Negro, so the one who joins the union probably has undergone 
but little change in regard to the Negro. They point out also 
that non-union white men are as averse to working with Ne- 
groes as union white men. At any rate, as the situation now 



100 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



is, the majority of Negroes are non-union, and will probably 
so remain until they develop enough strength independently 
so that they can be of more definite help or hindrance to the 
union cause. By keeping Negroes out of the trades, compe- 
tition is lessened for the men in the union. As long as Ne- 
groes wait to be invited in by the unions they will remain out- 
side. Only by succeeding in spite of the indifference of the 
union and even its occasional hostility, can Negroes hope to 
be recognized. 

The Negroes who immigrated to the State before the Civil 
War, came principally from the rural districts of the South, 
and settled largely in the rural districts of Pennsylvania. 
Friends of the race in the South who sent manumitted Negroes 
North, rightly believed that these Negroes could better suc- 
ceed as laborers on the farm, to which they were accustomed, 
than as workers in the city. Many escaped slaves settled also 
in the rural districts and some conducted successful farms un- 
til frightened away by slave hunters and the passage of the 
Fugitive Slave law. 

In the Southern and Eastern counties of the State, particu- 
larly Delaware, Chester, Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Frank- 
lin, Fayette and Washington, there were some well conducted 
farms. But the era of the great industrial expansion occa- 
sioned by improved means of transportation and communica- 
tion and improved machinery, has almost depleted the country 
districts, so far as the Negro is concerned. The same motives 
which caused the white boy and girl to leave the farm to go 
to the city, also impelled the Negro boy : higher wages, more 
excitement, greater opportunity for self-expression and ad- 
venture. Good farms which were cultivated for years by the 
fathers were deserted by the sons and daughters. And now 
the Negro farmer in the State forms but a small proportion 
of Negro workers. 



A Study In Economic History 101 



In 1900, according to the Census, there were 3,696 Ne- 
groes in agricultural pursuits, about 4.6% of the total number 
of Negro workers; 3.037 of these persons, about five-sixths 
of the total were agricultural laborers, 518 were farmers, plant- 
ers, and overseers. There are three dairymen; 89 gardeners, 
florists and nurserymen; 21 lumbermen and raftsmen; 11 
stock raisers, herders and drovers and 16 wood choppers. 

There were in 1900, 585 farms operated by owners, 2~6 
by part owners, 1 by owner and tenants ; 145 by cash tenants, 
and 72 by share tenants. As to the size, 21 of these farms were 
less than three acres ; 149 from three to ten acres ; 91 from ten 
to twenty acres; 130 from twenty to fifty acres; 109 from fifty- 
one to one hundred acres ; 62 from one hundred to one hun- 
dred and seventy-five acres; 2 from two hundred and sixty 
acres to five hundred ; and none over five hundred acres. The 
principal sources of income on the farms were as follows: 
For 78 farms, hay and grain; for 3, tobacco; for 145, live 
stock ; while 256 had various other crops. On the 585 farms, 
562 reported the value of domestic animals at $154,118. On 
386 farms, there were 2,514 head of neat cattle; on 362 farms, 
there were 1,571 dairy cows; and on 43 other farms, 900 head 
of other neat cattle. On 507 farms there were 1,220 horses, 
and on 37, there were 85 mules. There were reported 172 
lambs, and 993 sheep, one year and over; 1,781 head of swine; 
2 goats ; $9476 worth of poultry and $200 worth of bees. 25 
farms reported bees and 458 reported chickens. 490 farms 
of 2,938 acres produced 108,258 bushels of corn and 262 
farms of 1,988 acres produced 25,742 bushels of wheat; 2^7 
farms of 1,484 acres, produced 45,007 bushels of oats. One 
farm used four acres, producing 100 bushels of barley; 60 
farms employed 244 acres, producing 3,120 bushels of rye; 
6$ farms produced 3,557 bushels of buckwheat on 277 acres. 
There are more than 75,000 Negroes living within this 



102 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

State, who were born outside of its borders and who itumi- 
grated here between the ages of fifteen and fifty years. They 
are, therefore, principally able-bodied workers. Although the 
State expended nothing for their care during infancy and 
little for their education, it reaps the benefit of their toil. Un- 
like most foreigners who come to the State, the Negroes do 
not have to learn the language, or become used to the na- 
tional customs ; but they are able to adapt themselves quickly 
to our environment. Moreover, as a rule, they are a class of 
contented laborers and seldom disturb the industrial equi- 
librium. There are no Negro anarchists in Pennsylvania and 
as far as our knowledge goes, there never have been any. 
There are no violent antagonists to the social order. The 
Negroes are essentially a race of peace and patience. Their 
long suffering during the days of slavery, their religious tem- 
perament, childlike faithfulness and their wonderful adapta- 
bility, are calculated to make them a valuable asset to any com- 
munity in which they may be settled, if they are given rea- 
sonably fair treatment. They are cheap workers because of 
circumstances. Much that they ought to receive in wages goes 
to society as a part of its surplus. They have laid most of the 
asphalt pavements in the State, helped to construct many of 
the principal sewers, the Philadelphia subway and the filter 
plant. If they have been underpaid in these matters it has 
benefited the taxpayers. At any rate many of the public im- 
provements in the State have been made by these Negro la- 
borers whom the State did not train, but who as able-bodied 
workmen immigrated from the South. Again, the Negro im- 
migrants unlike much of the foreign labor, come to make this 
State their permanent home. Their savings are invested in 
the property and banks of the State, and what they spend is 
spent within the State. But a very small proportion of the 
money thev earn is sent out of the State and practically none 



A Study In Economic History 103 



is sent out of the country. Negroes have shown despite their 
meagre opportunity, capacity for improvement in labor and 
the management of business. The best of them are able to 
rise above mediocrity and the majority of them are useful 
workers. Economically considered, from the point of view 
of the State, the Negro worker has been a very profitable ac- 
quisition. 

OWNERSHIP OF PROPERTY. 



The acquisition of property presupposes industry, 
thrift and self-sacrifice. The study of the wealth which 
Negroes have been able to amass is a study of the race's 
industry and self-sacrifice, and shows something of its 
higher strivings. For, as has been shown, the men of the 
group are largely engaged in unskilled labor, which barely 
yields enough to maintain even the lowest standard of de- 
cent living. To save, out of their meagre earnings, suffi- 
cient money with which to secure real property is, there- 
fore, a sacrifice which only the best and most thoughtful 
undergo. 

The first mention of a Negro in connection with prop- 
erty-owning in Pennsylvania is in the will which William 
Perm made in 1701 in which he gave to one of his Negro 
slaves, "Old Sam," "and to his children's children forever," 
one hundred acres of land. Whether this property was 
turned over to "Old Sam" or not, is uncertain, for this will 
was invalidated by a later one, in which no mention is 
made of "Old Sam" or any slaves, or of any property to 
be transferred to Negroes. When the first property was 
actually acquired by Negroes is, therefore, unknown. Ac- 



104 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 

cording to the report of the Pennsylvania Abolition So- 
ciety, in 1796 there were 89 Negroes who were proprietors 
of houses, the average value of which was about $200. In 
182 1, the amount of real estate owned by Negroes in Phila- 
delphia was $281,162, assessed at $112,464. In 1832, the 
Negroes sent a memorial to the Legislature in which they 
claimed to pay $2,500 taxes on property, the market value 
of which was about $300,000. In 1838, it was estimated 
that the value of real estate owned by Negroes was $322,- 
532, on which $3,252.83 taxes were paid and the personal 
property $667,859. In 1849, Edward Needles reported 315 
Negro property owners, having real estate in Philadelphia 
with personal property valued at $630,886. In 1856, the 
real and personal property of Negroes was valued at $2,- 
685,693, on which they paid $9,766.42 taxes. 

Dr. DuBois estimated the value of real estate and per- 
sonal property owned by the Negroes of Philadelphia as 
$5,000,000, in 1898. According to the census of 1900, there 
were in the state 3,978 homes owned by their Negro occu- 
pants, while 25,221 were hired and the ownership of 1,850 
was unknown. The large majority of the houses which are 
owned by Negroes are located in the smaller towns where 
the cost of property is not as high as in the large cities. 

The difficulty of estimating the value of property own- 
ed by Negroes is due to the fact that on the tax books no 
account is taken of the color of the taxpayer, and one has 
to rely on the recollection of the tax assessors and is de- 
pendent on the word of various individuals. The personal 
registration law for cities of the first class provided for 
registration of all voters by color, age, occupation and 
whether they are lodgers, lessees or owners of the houses 
in which they live. This is however, unsatisfactory, as it 
gives nothing of those men who do not register or of the 



A Study In Economic History 105 

women who own homes or of men owning property else- 
where. Nor does it give anything as to the amount of 
property owned. One is left almost entirely to private 
sources of information which may be inaccurate. 

The following is based upon estimates made by old 
citizens, reports of tax assessors, records of personal regis- 
tration, lists of taxpayers given by clergymen, newspaper 
editors, doctors, lawyers, charity workers and others and 
verified by the tax assessor's books. 

In every case, the estimate is possibly lower than the 
actual amount of property. In 1907 there were 712 Negro 
taxpayers having 802 pieces of property in Philadelphia, 
paying taxes on $2,438,675. Eighteen of these properties 
were assessed at less than $500 each, a total valuation of 
$4,725; 52 between $500 and $1,000, a total of $412,500; 
529 between $1,000 and $3,000, a total of $948,200; 116 
pieces assessed between $3,000 and $5,000, a total of $426,- 
150; 64 pieces assessed between $5,000 and $7,500, a total 
of $388,100; 11 pieces assessed between $7,500 and $10,000, 
a total of $89,500; 12 pieces assessed between $10,000 and 
over, a total value of $169,500. This represents an invest- 
ment of about $5,000,000. In Harrisburg, the first ward, 
8 persons are reported as owning 11 pieces of property as- 
sessed at $12,200; in the tenth ward, the assessor writes 
me, "We are glad to say that so far as we know, not one 
foot of real estate in our ward is owned by Negroes ;" in 
the fifth ward, 9 persons are given, owning 9 pieces of 
property assessed at $9,660; a total of twenty-five persons 
owning $27,900. In Chester, 102 property holders, y6 males 
and 26 females, were reported having property valued at 
$160,000. Valuation of property of Negroes in' various other 
cities is estimated by reliable correspondents to be $50,000 
for York; $150,000 for Coatesville; $100,000 for Wilkes- 



106 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

Barre ; $9,000 for Doylestown ; $75,000 for Altoona ; $2,000,- 
000 for Pittsburg and Allegheny; $150,000 for Washington; 
$50,000 for Media ; and $400,000 for West Chester. In 
Philadelphia there are several estates of Negroes said to 
be worth a quarter of a million dollars. The estate of the 
late John McKee was said to be worth upwards of a 
million dollars ; that of Mrs. Henry Jones, widow of ca- 
terer Plenry Jones, came very near a quarter of a million 
dollars. Near Altoona, three families owned more than 
$10,000 worth of property. Three Negroes in Johnstown 
own property which is valued at $10,000; several in West 
Chester and Carlisle have property valued at $10,000 or 
more. In the smaller places where there are but few Ne- 
groes, they often pay taxes on $3,000 to $25,000 worth of 
property. 

It is difficult to estimate the total value of the property 
owned by Negroes in the state. The average assessed value 
of 802 pieces of property in Philadelphia was $3,041. In 
1900, Philadelphia County had about one-tenth of the 
property owned by Negroes in the state. To-day, Phila- 
delphia property is assessed at $2,438,675. If the same 
proportion holds, the assessed value of the property of 
Negroes in the State is between $20,000,000 and $25,000,000. 
From the registration books in Philadelphia, it is possible 
to secure the occupations of the men who are voters and 
property holders. The following table shows the occu- 
pations of the 485 men who registered as owning homes; 

Occupation of home owners. Number. 

Laborers 68 

Caterers 38 

Teamsters and drivers 34 

Waiters 32 



A Study In Economic History 101 

Porters (in stores and on R. R.) 27 

Clerks 27 

Dealers and merchants 25 

Janitors 17 

Butlers •• 17 

Clergyman 15 

Barbers 14 

Coachmen 13 

Gardeners and farmers 10 

Physicians and dentists 9 

Messengers 7 

Policemen • • 6 

Stewards 6 

Retired persons 6 

Upholsterers 5 

Insurance agents 4 

Contractors 4 

Teachers 4 

Watchmen 4 

Packers 4 

Cooks 4 

Firemen 4 

Foremen, lawyers, shoemakers, musicians and livery- 
men, 3 each; 15 hotelkeepers, undertakers, butchers, super- 
intendents, cigarmakers, tailors, bricklayers, plasterers, bar- 
tenders, stonecutters, carpenters, engineers, lettercarriers, 
artists, hucksters, bookkeepers, stable bosses, stockkeepers, 
2 each ; 36 expressmen, restaurant keepers, menders, wire 
insulator, pilot, salesman, dyer, masseur, florist, operator, 
bellman, journalist, elevator man, jeweler, blacksmith, pho- 
tographer, manufacturer, longshoreman, agent, laundryman, 
1 each. 21. 

These tables show that the large majority of Negro 



108 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 

home-owners are in domestic and personal service. In Phil- 
adelphia alone, laborers, caterers, teamsters, porters, jani- 
tors, butlers, coachmen, messengers, stewards, watchmen, 
bellmen, cooks, firemen, elevator operators, barbers, com- 
prise nearly three hundred of the four hundred and eighty- 
five home owners returned. In Chester, a large proportion 
of the home owners are laborers. 

The same record shows that the 485 Negroes in Phila- 
delphia, above referred to, were natives of the different 
states in about the same proportion as the general majority 
of Negroes. The largest number of Negro property hold- 
ers were born in Pennsylvania, while Virginia, Maryland 
and North Carolina follow in the order given. 

Ages and length of residence of property holders : The 
following tables are compiled from the registration books 
and show the age periods of property-holding voters, and 
the period of years that they have lived in the state : 

Age Periods. No. of Holders. Percentage. 

From 21 to 30 years, 32 6.6 

From 31 to 40 years, 126 25.9 

From 41 to 50 years, 177 36.7 

From 51 to 60 years, 87 17.9 

From 61 to 70 years, 42 8.7 

From 71 to 80 years, 13 2.7 

Eighty years or over, 2 .5 

Age unknown or not given, 5 1.0 

Total, 485 100.00 

Length of residence in Pennsylvania : 

Immigrant Native 

(Negroes) (Negroes) 

born outside Pa. born in Pa. Total 

From 1 to 5 years, 8 8 

From 6 to 10 years, 38 (a) 38 

From 11 to 15 years, 65 (b) 65 

From 16 to 20 years, 56 (c) 56 



A Study In Economic History 109 



Born outside Pa. 


Bora in Pa. 


Total 


39 


3 


42 


42 


12 


54 


26 


14 


40 


3° 


18 


48 


14 


22 


36 


3i8 


69 


387 


7 


20 


27 


1 


14 


15 


1 


18 


19 


2 


14 


16 


1 


3 


4 


13 


4 


17 



From 21 to 25 years, 
From 26 to 30 years, 
From 31 to 35 years, 
From 36 to 40 years, 
From 41 to 45 years, 

Total up to 45 years, 
From 46 to 50 years, 
From 51 to 55 years, 
From 56 to 60 years, 
From 61 to 70 years, 
From 71 years and over, 
Residence not given, 

Total, 343 (d) 142 (d) 485 

The largest number of owners is between the ages of 
41 and 50 years ; the second largest between 31 and 40 years 
of age ; 336 owners are fifty years of age or younger, that 
is, practically seventy per cent, of those who own prop- 
erty were born since the beginning of the Civil War, and 
therefore belong to the generation of the free men. 

These facts are deserving of more than passing notice, 
in view of the frequent assertion, that the younger genera- 
tion of Negroes, born since Abraham Lincoln's Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation and especially those who have migrated 
North, are not equal to their fathers in the matter of acquir- 
ing property. These facts seem to point to an opposite 

conclusion. 

It is impossible to get any accurate statistics of the" 
savings of Negroes. Some idea may be given by reports re- 
ceived from two of Philadelphia's Savings Fund Societies. 
The result of a record kept of the colored depositors in the 
Western Savings Fund is summarized as follows: (From 
October, 1906, to March, 1907) "In 2,785 open accounts, 
72 accounts were opened by colored persons. The books 
would show, approximately, 1,333 accounts with Negroes. 



110 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

The percentage of money deposited is .1162. If this applies 
to $20,072,417, our total deposit in line to date, would show 
$268,101 to be the aggregate amount of deposits by Ne- 
groes. The Philadelphia Savings Fund, which is the oldest 
in the state, reported that 2,021 Negroes opened new ac- 
counts in 1905, and 2,000 in the year 1906, which were 4.2 
per cent, of the total deposits for these two years. This 
bank had a total deposit on January 1st, 1907, of $95,966,- 
863.34. If the per cent, of depositors holds good for the 
percentage of deposits, the share of the Negroes would be 
4.2 per cent, or $3,610,608.26. In the Starr Savings Bank, 
of the 15,142 open accounts in 1906, about thirty per cent, 
were of Negroes. In these banks, the majority of Negro 
depositors are women and 99 per cent, can read and write. 
The majority are domestic and unskilled workers. There 
are other banks in Philadelphia and all over the state which 
have savings of Negroes and it is impossible to estimate 
the total. 

An increasing number of Negroes are investing their 
savings in stocks and bonds, in business enterprises, etc. 
Several Negroes own Pennsylvania Railroad stock and 
some own stock in the United States Steel Corporation. 
Many own real estate in the South and in other Northern 
states. 

THE CHURCH AND SECRET SOCIETIES 



Because of the place occupied by religion in the life of 
the African Negro and of the American slaves, it is not 
surprising that the church should be the first independent 
organization developed among them. The first separate 



A Study In Economic History III 



Negro church, with a Negro pastor, was established in 
Philadelphia in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
The first organization of several distinct Negro churches 
into an independent denomination of Negro Christians was 
also formed in Philadelphia in 1816. 

The census of 1890 was incomplete regarding the sta- 
tistics of Negro churches from the fact that many Negro 
churches were under the supervision of bodies which made 
in their returns no distinction as to color. Thus for Penn- 
sylvania, no colored Baptist Churches were reported as such 
and no separation is made of the Negroes who are mem- 
bers of the Episcopal, Presbyterian and Catholic churches. 
The whole number of colored church organizations given 
in Pennsylvania was 282. These had 234 church edifices, 
with seating capacity of 77,865, also 25 halls with a seating 
capacity of 3,025. The membership was 26,753 persons 
and their church property was valued at $1,156,408. The 
census gave the membership of Methodist bodies in Penn- 
sylvania as 22,166, the number of church organizations 
among them as 179, having 189 church edifices and 20 halls 
with a combined seating capacity of 66,200 persons. The 
Baptists of Pennsylvania were, however, as large as the 
Methodists in 1890, if not larger. But allowing that the 
Baptists were in 1890 equal to the Methodists, there were 
in all probability then in the state at least 400 churches, 
having about 40,000 colored communicants, with 450 church 
edifices and halls valued at not less than $2,000,000. The 
census of churches now being taken ought to correct this 
error, and properly separate the Negro churches. 

In the whole state of Pennsylvania there were in 1890, 
1.726,640 communicants out of a population of 5,258,113 or 
32.8 per cent. ; while by the evidently incorrect count, 23.9 
per cent, of the Negro population were members of some 



H2 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



religious organization. By the corrected estimate of Negro 
church members, at least 37.2 per cent, of the race in the 
state are members of the church. 

The principal denominations represented in the state 
are: Regular Baptist (colored) ; African Methodist Episco- 
pal ; African Methodist Episcopal Zion ; American Union 
Protestant Methodist ; Colored Methodist Episcopal 
(North); Protestant Episcopal; Presbyterian; Congrega- 
tional ; Roman Catholic, and the Church of God. The first 
five are entirely under Negro supervision, and represent the 
largest percentage of the membership. 

The Baptist denomination has the largest number of 
members. The first church of this denomination was estab- 
lished in 1809 at Philadelphia. For three-quarters of a cen- 
tury the Baptists as a rule had the less influential and intel- 
ligent class of Negroes in its membership and held rather 
an insignificant place among the churches of the state. Dur- 
ing the present generation, however, the Baptist denomina- 
tion has taken the front rank among Pennsylvania's Negro 
churches, both as to number of churches and influence. 
The increase of the influence of the Baptist church has been 
due chiefly to the influx of Negroes from Virginia, where 
the Baptist denomination was probably the first established 
among Negroes and where it is to-day stronger than any 
other denomination. Many of the ministers of this church 
are Virginians. The Baptist church may truly be called 
the church of the people. There are in the state at least 
six Baptist churches with a thousand or more members, 
and two with more than two thousand members. 

In 1813, there were six Negro churches in Philadelphia; 
one Episcopal church, the largest, with 560 members ; 
three Methodist Churches, with 1,426 members; one Pres- 
byterian Church, 300 members; and one Baptist Church 



A Study In Economic History 113 



with 80 members. In 1838, there were 16 churches in Phil- 
adelphia, of which eight were Methodist, having 2,860 mem- 
bers ; four were Baptist, with 700 members ; two were Pres- 
byterian, with 325 members; one was a Lutheran Church 
with 10 members, and an Episcopal Church with 100 mem- 
bers. The total value of the property in 1838 was $114,000, 
of which the Methodists owned $50,000 worth ; the Episco- 
palians, $36,000 worth; the Presbyterians, $20,000 worth; 
the Baptists, $4,200 and the Lutherans, $3,000 worth. 

In 1907, there were in Philadelphia 31 Baptist Churches, 
a third of which were established during the past ten years; 
in Pittsburg there are about 20 Baptist Churches, the ma- 
jority of which were established during the past decade. 

The Methodists are the oldest distinctively Negro de- 
nomination in the state and country. The African Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church was established in Philadelphia 
in 1816, being constituted by 16 delegates representing 
churches at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Salem and Attleboro, 
New Jersey. Richard Allen, of Bethel Church, Philadel- 
phia, was chosen Bishop and Philadelphia was selected as 
the headquarters of the church. Since that time the A. M. E. 
Church has grown to about 600,000 members, with organi- 
zations in nearly every State in the United States, Canada 
and the West Indies and West and South Africa. It had 
in 1908 seventeen living Bishops, all of whom are Negroes. 
This church has been very intimately connected with the 
development of Negroes of Pennsylvania. During the early 
years of its existence, it planted preaching stations in nearly 
every community where there were any considerable num- 
ber of Negroes. During the period prior to the Civil War 
it was the chief church to minister to the fugitive slaves 
and manumitted slaves from the South. It started the 
first Negro college in the North, even before slavery was 

8 



114 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

abolished and it founded in 1852 what is now the oldest 
Negro newspaper in the country, and in 1884 the A. M. E. 
Church Review, now the oldest and largest Negro maga- 
zine. During the period before the war, its ministers were 
among the most aggressive and influential Negroes in the 
state, interested in most movements for the uplift of the 
race and consulted frequently by the whites who were in- 
terested in the people of color. Since the Civil War, and 
the incoming of large numbers of immigrants from the 
South, the A. M. E. Church, though increasing in actual 
numbers, has gradually surrendered its leadership to the 
Baptist Church. There are at present organizations of the 
A. M. E. Church in more than a hundred cities and towns 
with an aggregate membership of approximately 15,000 
persons. 

The A. M. E. Zion Church began a distinctive denomina- 
tion in New York, New Haven, Connecticut and Philadelphia. 
The Philadelphia church, which helped to form this denomi- 
nation, was established in 1813. In Philadelphia and Har- 
risburg, where two of its oldest churches are, this denomi- 
nation, like the A. M. E. Church, exercised considerable in- 
fluence upon the Negroes in the early days. The denomina- 
tion now had in 1908 eight living Bishops, all Negroes, and 
about 500,000 members in the United States. The headquar- 
ters of its Financial, Missionary and Church Extension De- 
partments, are located in Philadelphia. There are churches 
in about fifty cities and towns in Pennsylvania, and the 
membership in the State is about 5000. 

The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church is the third 
independent organization. This denomination was founded 
in Georgia in 1870, by the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South, which set apart its Negro members into a separate 
independent organization. This church has a very small 



A Study In Economic History 115 



representation in Pennsylvania. In 1890 there were six or- 
ganizations having 247 members, 2 worshipping in church 
edifices and 4 in halls. The church at large is located in 
the South and has 7 Bishops and about 300,000 members. 

The Church of God has a strong organization in Phila- 
delphia, having possibly a thousand members. The Bishop 
of this church is a Negro. It is popularly known as the 
foot washers, because the practice of washing feet. A sys- 
tem of church stores has been organized, and receives lib- 
eral patronage from the members, who hold some things 
in common and are supposed to give one-tenth of their in- 
come. Besides these there are other churches, which are 
under the general government of whites. These are the 
Episcopal, Congregational, Presbyterian and Roman Catho- 
lic Churches. They have separate church organizations for 
Negroes but no separate general organizations. The his- 
tory of these churches extends far back, the first Episcopal 
Church being established in 1794 and the first Presbyterian 
in 1806. These denominations, like the Methodists, played 
a very large part in the early history of the Negroes. 
They appealed especially to the more intelligent class of Ne- 
groes. But with the exception of the Catholics, they are 
of proportionately less influence than formerly, for they 
have not been able to hold a large portion of the immigrant 
Negroes who, as has been said, have gone largely to the 
Baptist Church. There are 18 Negro clergymen, who were 
in 1908, members of the Presbyteries in Pennsylvania, 14 
of whom have charges and 4 have not. In 1908 there were 
14 Presbyterian Churches in the State, 4 of which were in 
Philadelphia, and 1 each in Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Read- 
ing, Carlisle, Chester, West Chester, Oxford, York, Cham- 
bersburg and Welsh Mountains. The total membership of the 
Negro Presbyterian Churches was 1843 in 1908, more than 



1 1 6 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

half of which was in Philadelphia. The total valuation of 
property is $190,000, $112,000 of which is in Philadelphia, 
The Protestant Episcopal Church has in the State eight 
churches, six being in Philadelphia, one in Allegheny and 
one in Chester. The total membership at the last meeting 
of Episcopalians was 1104. 

The church is an important economic organization 
among Negroes. It owns in Pennsylvania more than three 
million dollars worth of property, and its income is not less 
than a quarter of a million dollars a year. In Philadelphia 
alone, within a year, there have been two purchases of 
church buildings, at from $20,000 to $75,000, and a new Ne- 
gro church erected at a cost of $90,000. The Negro minis- 
ter in Pennsylvania, though to a less degree than formerly, 
is still an important personage in the upward economic 
movement of Negroes in the State. The largest building 
and loan association among Negroes was organized by a 
Presbyterian minister, and a minister is on the board of 
nearly every incorporated business in the State. The first 
industrial school in the State was organized by a minister, 
and the two that are now operated by Negroes are support- 
ed largely by the Church. Most of the other private schools 
in the State are the direct outgrowth of activity in the 
churches. Most of the benevolent societies have connec- 
tion with the Church ; and all of the insurance societies save 
perhaps one or two, grew out of church activity. There is 
hardly an activity which is uplifting in its purpose, which 
does not originate in or later find some connection with the 
Church. Still most of the churches are in debt and find it 
difficult to engage in many social activities which do not in- 
crease their income. Thus a large field of effective social 
work is quite neglected chiefly because of lack of money. 

On the social side, the Church is still the chief institu- 



A Study In Economic History 111 

tion. Here strangers come and are introduced and find 
ready welcome. In a large city like Philadelphia or Pitts- 
burg, where men are busy and time is valuable, the incom- 
ing immigrant from the South would be at a great loss had 
he not the church to which to go, at first, at least. These 
institutions have sociables nearly every night in the week, 
either in the church house or in the homes of the members. 
Concerts, tableaux and light operas are given in Negro 
churches, which introduces all kinds of talent to the Negro 
public. Negro lecturers, elocutionists and other entertain- 
ers find the easiest way to reach the people is through the 
Church. The Church is used for public meetings of vari- 
ous kinds. If the Business Men's League, or the Mechan- 
ics' Association want to reach the people they go to the 
church. Nor is politics barred. Some of the largest politi- 
cal meetings are held in churches — though the practice is 
growing less prevalent — and clergymen are among the most 
influential Negro political leaders. The only Negro mem- 
ber of the State Republican Committee is a Baptist clergy- 
man, who has one of the largest churches in Philadelphia. 
In all social movements it is the Church which is expect- 
ed to take a leading part, and it generally does. Any move- 
ment concerning the interests of humanity and the inter- 
ests of the Negro in particular, finds audience in the Negro 
church. 

Some churches are attempting special systematic so- 
cial work. One of the most successful of these, is the 
Berean Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, of which Rev. 
Matthew Anderson, a graduate of Oberlin and Princeton, 
is pastor. The church was founded in 1880, and located in 
a part of the city where but few Negroes lived. In 1884 
the Berean Kindergarten was started. It has enrolled over 
800 pupils since its beginning. In 1888 the Berean Build- 



118 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



ing and Loan Association, whose work has already been 
mentioned, was formed. In 1894, the Berean Seaside 
Home was opened at Point Pleasant, New Jersey, prorid- 
ing a quiet resort, where Negroes of refinement will not 
come in contact with the unpleasant prejudices which pre- 
vail at many seaside places. The Home accommodates 
about fifty persons. In 1897, the Berean Bureau of Mutual 
Help was started, and in ten years has given employment 
to over seven hundred persons. 

In 1899 the Berean Manual Training and Industrial 
School was started. In 1900 the Berean Educational Con- 
ference was established, under whose auspices such leaders 
as ex-President Cleveland, Hon. W. N. Ashman, J. William 
Martin, Robert E. Pattison have spoken. In 1904 the pas- 
tor of the church started the Berean Seaside Conference, 
and in 1906, the Berean Trades Association, and in 1908, 
the Berean Social and Economical Conference. Many other 
churches are doing similar work, but in a less extensive 
way. In Philadelphia, Calvary M. E. Church, Bethel A. 
M. E. Church, Zion Baptist, First Baptist, Central Baptist, 
and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Crucifixion 
have institutional features more or less developed. The 
last named church has gone farther than most Negro 
churches in its dealing with the amusement question. Tt 
has gone against the general view of Negro Christians in 
establishing a poolroom and evenings for dancing. The 
First Baptist, has through its Minute Men's Association, 
purchased a building especially for work among men, and 
through its Charity Aid Society, purchased property for a 
home for aged persons. 

The purely religious work of the church consists chiefly 
of preaching and prayer meeting and an annual or semi- 
annual "revival." In both preaching and prayer, emphasis 



A Study In Economic History 119 

is put upon the emotional, though to much less extent than 
formerly ; the average Christian thinks that he fulfills his 
religious duty by "feeling good." The Negroes' religion 
is largely personal ; they seek chiefly for communion with 
God; they like to "talk with God," "to feel His spirit;" 
their prayers consist largely of confessions of sin in gen- 
eral and expressions of humility, emphasizing God's judg- 
ment and His wrath and begging His forgiveness. They 
nearly always end with fervent expressions anticipatory of 
the glories of heaven and the joys of the after-life. When 
the religion of the Negro leaves the subjective and per- 
sonal, and takes on the objective and social, it expresses it- 
self chiefly in giving to the church and to the poor and un- 
fortunate, and visiting the sick, and helping to bury the 
dead. It is quite difficult for anyone who has not kept in 
very close touch with the Negro church to realize the 
amount of casual charity done by Negro church members. 
Many times they give a part of their last dollar to the 
church and to the poor. "Give till you feel it," is an expres- 
sion often heard from the Negro pulpit, and not seldom 
obeyed by the faithful Negro Christian. Nor is it an un- 
common thing for the hard worked Negro cook, or washer 
woman, or housewife, after doing service from ten to four- 
teen hours a day, to visit the sick and sit up nearly all night 
with the distressed. With organized charity, however, the 
average Negro Christian, not unlike the average white 
Christian, has not yet harmonized his religion. That sponta- 
neous and indiscriminate giving is the only real charity, is 
the belief of the majority. Yet the beneficial society is a very 
frequent attachment to the large Negro church and tends 
more or less to systematize its benevolence, while also a 
few churches have old age pensioners who are given regu- 
lar allowances per week. 



120 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

As to moral character, the church is still the insti- 
tution of respectability, as well as piety. Generally speak- 
ing, the average of morality in the Negro church is much 
higher than the average outside of the church. Though 
the church cannot rigidly enforce all of its laws, yet its re- 
straining influence in the grosser evils, and among the 
greater portion of its members is daily evident. Time was 
when the churches protested chiefly against dancing, thea- 
tregoing and card playing. Most of the churches still 
protest against these things, but have also increased their 
protest against greater evils. In the character of Negro 
ministers, there has been a notable improvement both in 
education and morality, although there is still a great deal 
lacking. The standards of piety known to the ignorant Ne- 
gro, those of loud and long prayers, frequent shouting and 
constant church attendance, while still prevalent, are be- 
coming less generally accepted than formerly. When it is 
remembered that the church takes all who come to it on 
their own word, on "profession of faith," that is on good 
intention and not on a certificate of past good character, 
but on their "conversion," it is easy to see how its progress 
in morality must of necessity be slow. Nor could it be ex- 
pected that the Negro's religion would develop out of pro- 
portion to his intelligence, or his economic condition. Prog- 
ress in religion and in morals, like progress in education 
and industry, is slow, notwithstanding the highly super- 
natural element in the religion. 

But with those churches which have not been able to 
hold the masses, but have appealed to the more cultured 
classes of Negroes, there has been, as is to be expected, a 
more rapid progress, especially in the conduct of religious 
service. Regarding one of this group of churches Mr. Ar- 
thur Shadwell, an Englishman, visiting Philadelphia, writes 



A Study In Economic History 121 

in his book, "Industrial Efficiency" : "I have no informa- 
tion on the subject but it appears to me that Philadelphia 
is the home of the colored aristocracy. There are eighteen 
African Methodist Episcopal Churches. I attended service 
at one of them on a Sunday, and found a striking contrast 
with others I had attended in the South. The service was 
practically indistinguishable from a high church (not ritual- 
istic), Anglican, one in England, except the surpliced choir 
was formed by women. The sermon, the tone and manner 
of the whole service and the demeanor of the congregation 
reminded me of St. Mary Abbotts, or any church of that 
moderately high order which is now so general in England. 
The signs of refinement, taste and culture were striking. 
Every Sunday I spent in the States, I made it a point of 
going to as many churches of different kinds as I could get 
in, and my experience ranges from a pure specimen of Ne- 
gro fervor in Columbia, S. C, to St. Patrick's Cathedral in 
New York, and Trinity Church, Boston, which corresponds 
(say) with St. Margaret's, Westminster, and is the resort 
of the intellectual aristocracy. The African service in 
Philadelphia was no whit less refined." 

The secret orders come next to the church in social im- 
portance, and they, too, have an African foundation. But 
their chief hold on the people is not so much their secrecy 
as their sick benefit and life insurance features. The prin- 
cipal orders represented are the Odd Fellows, Masons, True 
Reformers, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Knights of Tabor 
and Gallilean Fishermen. 

The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows is the largest 
secret organization in the State. It was introduced into 
this country from England in March, 1843, when the Philo- 
mathean Lodge, No. 646, was established in New York 
City. The first lodge in Pennsylvania and the third in the 



122 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



United States, was Unity Lodge, No. 711, established in 
Philadelphia, May 14, 1844. According to the Journal of 
Proceedings of the biennial session of the Grand United 
Order of Odd Fellows, which met in October, 1906, there 
were 4643 lodges of Odd Fellows in the country, with a 
membership of 186,108. The complete statistics of the or- 
der were as follows, in 1906: 

Name. Lodges. Members. 

Active Lodges 4,643 186,108 

Active Households 21,636 79,343 

P. G. M. Councils 274 5,2i» 

Juvenile Societies 395 12,245 

Patriarchies 142 142 

D. G. Lodges 39 

District Households 26 

Total number of lodges 8,155 285,931 

Increase since 1904 1,641 66,190 

The headquarters of the Odd Fellows are in Philadel- 
phia, where they have erected a six-story building, at a cost 
of $125,000. The Odd Fellows' "Journal,''' the national or- 
gan of the order, is published here. In the State in 1906, 
there were 105 lodges. 

The Grand United Order of True Reformers was es- 
tablished in 1882, in Richmond, Virginia, by a Methodist 
preacher. It is not merely a secret order, but it has as its 
chief object the economic elevation of the Negro race in 
America. To that end it has established an insurance de- 
partment, a bank, hotels, mercantile establishments, a news- 
paper, an old folks' home, and other institutions of uplift. 
According to the yearly report in 1903, the receipts of the 
financial department of the order were $173,440.70; of the 
record department, $47,851.26; of the supply department, 



A Study In Economic History 123 



$21,403.75; from rents of real estate, $27,219.86; from sales 
of regalia, $25,269.55. The receipts of the bank for this year 
were $853,591.53. The value of the real estate owned by 
the society was given at $367,050. The growth of the True 
Reformers in Pennsylvania is due chiefly to the heavy mi- 
gration of Negroes from Virginia. The headquarters for 
the State are in Philadelphia. In 1903 there were reported 
161 lodges in the State, in fifteen counties. Since then, 
however, the True Reformers have more than doubled their 
membership in this State. 

The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Ac- 
cepted Masons of the State of Pennsylvania, according to 
the ninety-second annual communication in 1906, compris- 
ed 68 lodges, having 239 members, and were represented in 
thirty-seven places in the State. Their headquarters are in 
Philadelphia, where they own a four-story hall. 

<& 

EDUCATION. 



In most of the colonies but little effort was made to 
train the Negroes. As late as the middle of the eighteenth 
century, when they numbered at least a quarter of a mil- 
lion, more than half of whom were free, there is no record 
of a school for Negroes. As in other efforts for the eleva- 
tion of the Negro, so in education, Pennsylvania was the 
leader. The Quakers were among the first to give atten- 
tion to them. In 1750 Anthony Benezet, a French Quaker, 
opened the first school for Negroes, in Philadelphia, and 
for more than thirty years, was the ardent supporter of the 
cause of Negro education. When he died in 1784 he left 



124 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



possibly the first bequest for the education of the Negroes. 
The next step was taken by the Friends' Monthly Meeting 
of Philadelphia, in January, 1770, when it was decided to 
establish a school for "giving to the children of free Ne- 
groes and mulattoes the preference and the opportunity of 
being taught clear of expense to their parents." Accord- 
ingly the school was opened June, 1770, with twenty-three 
colored children and became the foundation of the system 
of private "charity schools" conducted by the Quakers. 
With the bequests from Benezet and others, the original 
school was enabled to accommodate more pupils and to of- 
fer night courses. In 1784 the Raspberry Alley School, 
which continues its existence to this day, was established 
and became one of the most useful of these Quaker schools. 
In 1827 the Infant School was established at Clifton and 
South Streets, and was in existence in 1836. In 1837 the 
Institute for Colored Youths was established ; in 1838 the 
Adelphia School was established on Wager Street; in 1848 
the School for the Destitute on Lombard, above Seventh 
Street, and in 1850, the Sheppard School, on Randolph, 
above Parrish Street. Besides the schools directly under 
the Quakers, there were semi-public schools and schools 
connected with the benevolent and reformatory institu- 
tions. Among these the earliest was the Orphans' Shelter, 
established in 1822, on Thirteenth Street, above Callowhill. 
In 1850 the school at the House of Refuge was started, and 
in 1855 the Home for Colored Children on Girard, above 
Ridge Avenue. Among the early institutions, there were 
also private schools, which were taught by Negroes. These 
were among the very earliest schools and show a healthy 
interest of the better class of Negroes in their own educa- 
tion. Absalom Jones taught a school in Philadelphia be- 
fore 1800. Most of the Negro churches were used also for 



A Study In Economic History 125 

school purposes ; indeed, the Negro church-school was the 
forerunner of the public school. In 1838, there were re- 
ported thirteen private pay schools, of which ten were 
taught by Negro teachers. In 1856 thirteen of them were 
reported as still in existence. These schools averaged about 
twenty-five pupils each. The oldest of them was that of 
Sarah M. Douglass, which was established in 1833, and had 
thirty pupils. The next was established in 1836 and was 
conducted by Diana Smith, in Prosperous' Alley. The other 
eight Negro private schools which existed in 1838 had dis- 
appeared in 1856. 

The public schools for Negroes were started fully sev- 
enty years after the first private schools. In 1822, the first 
public school was started at Sixth, above Lombard Street. 
This school still exists and is known as the James Forten 
School. To-day, however, it is chiefly attended by Jews. 
In 1830, the Roberts Vaux Public School was started on 
what was then called Coates Street, near Fifth ; in 1839 an 
ungraded public school was organized in Frankford ; in 
1841, the Bannaker Public School was started in Paschall- 
ville. The same year a primary school at Sixth and Lom- 
bard Streets; in 1849, tne Corn Street Ungraded School. In 
these public schools there were doubtless many colored 
teachers. In 1856 it was reported that the public schools 
were improving though they were not as efficient as the pri- 
vate charity schools. 

With the abolition of slavery in the United States and 
the large immigration of Negroes to the State, the facilities 
furnished by private sources became less and less adequate, 
and the necessity for greater public interest in the educa- 
tion of Negroes more apparent. Education became less a 
matter of charity than of recognized public necessity. In 
the last forty years the private schools have gradually tak- 



126 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

en a less prominent place, having all dissappeared except the 
higher and special schools. The only efforts at their own 
education now in existence by Negroes, is that undertaken 
by churches. The unendowed charity institutions conduct- 
ed by Quakers, which did such a great service in primary 
education before the Civil War, have also passed away. 
Those which have endowment have found that the public 
schools have been much better prepared than they to do the 
work. Several of them have changed their courses and 
those which have not done so, are inefficient as compared 
with the public schools. 

The public schools existed from the beginning as dis- 
tinctively Negro schools supported by public funds. There 
is no evidence to show that any great interest was taken 
in these schools as long as they were separate. They did 
not have the best teachers nor did the better class of Ne- 
groes always send their children to them. In 1881, how- 
ever, an act was passed abolishing the Negro public schools 
as such, and giving the Negro children the right to attend 
any public school to which they were eligible without re- 
gard to their color. This act opened newer opportunities 
to Negro children all over the State and stimulated an im- 
provement of the schools which Negroes attended. It did 
not, however, break up the already existing Negro schools, 
nor was it intended to do so. It merely made it illegal to 
exclude a Negro child from a public school because of its 
color. 

In 1900 there were 43,349 Negroes of school age in 
Pennsylvania, of whom 20,408 were males and 22,988 were 
females. During the census year 1900, 19,235 of these per- 
sons, or 44.7 per cent, attended school. The total school at- 
tendance for the year 1909 was 19,573 — 93°7 males and 10,- 
265 females, distributed as to age as follows: Ninety-seven 



A Study In Economic History 127 

under 5 years of age, 6898 from 5 to 9 years, 9227 from 10 
to 14 years, 2610 from 15 to 20 years, and 241, 21 years and 
•yer. Less than half of those of school age go to school be- 
cause of the large number of boys and girls who stop to go to work 
after they reach the age of 14 years. Of the 19,573 Negroes 
attending school in 1900, 18,185, or 92.7 per cent, attended 
school six months or more; 118 (58 boys and 60 girls), one 
month or less ; 254 boys and 250 girls from two to three 
months; 816 (318 boys and 418 girls) from four to five 
months. 

Our statistics of illiteracy must not be taken for the 
population at large, as showing anything as to capacity for 
reading and writing. They show rather, the relative op- 
portunity for learning. When, for instance, it is said that 
the Negroes of Pennsylvania have an illiteracy less than 
that of the Negroes of Mississippi, it does not mean that 
they are any better or brighter than the Negroes of the 
Southern States but merely that Pennsylvania gives educa- 
tional advantages which Mississippi does not give. 

With the improving of school opportunities the illiter- 
acy of Negroes is steadily being cut down. In 1856 nearly 
half of the adults of Philadelphia could not read or write; 
in 1890 the percentage was reduced to 18 per cent., and in 
1900 was about 11.8 per cent. The illiteracy of Pennsyl- 
vania is affected by the migration of adult Negroes from the 
South. The illiteracy of the younger persons is quite 
small ; that of those from 10 to 16 years of age being only 
2.5 per cent., and from 15 to 20 years of age, about 6.5 per 
cent. Moreover the illiteracy of the Negroes compares 
more than favorably with that of our foreign population. 
The illiteracy of the foreign population of Pennsylvania is 
increasing; that of the Negro is decreasing. In 1880 the 
illiteracy of Pennsylvania's foreign population was 15. 1 per 



128 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

cent.; of Pennsylvania's Negroes, 27.1 per cent.; in 1890, 
the illiteracy of the foreign-born was 17.8 per cent. ; and 
that of the Negro 17.8 per cent.; in 1900, the illiteracy of 
Pennsylvania's foreign-born population was 19.9 per cent., 
while that of the Negroes of the State was 15. 1 per cent. 
The Negro and foreign population are compared as to illit- 
eracy in the following table taken from the United States 
Census of 1900: 

ILLITERACY OF NEGROES AND FOREIGN WHITES IN PENNSYLVANIA 

BY AGE PERIODS. 1900 

Negroes Foreign Whites 

Age Periods Population Illiterates Percent Population Illiterates Percent 

10 to 14 years 12,037 299 2.5 3>,393 2,643 8.4 

15 to 24 years 35.619 2,648 7.4 157,4'° 30,969 19.6 

25 to 34 years 35.262 4,074 11.8 242,982 56,740 23.3 

35 to 44 years 22,787 4,290 [8.8 207,148 42,997 20.8 

10 to 41 years and over 105,787 11,111 10.7 638,933 133,349 20.9 

Unknown 786 269 34.2 2,538 8.1 31.6 

45 years and over 22,444 7.95* 35-4 321,118 57,556 17.9 

Total over 10 years 128,945 '9,532 15. 1 962,589 191,7.6 19.9 

The illiteracy of the foreign immigrants is higher than 
that of the Negroes at every age period. Negro children 
from 10 to 14 years of age, have among them only 2.5 per 
cent, of illiterates, while foreign children of the same age 
have more than three times as large a percentage of illiter- 
ates, 8.4 per cent. From 15 to 24 years of age the illiteracy 
of the foreigner is more than twice as great as that of the 
Negro, being 19.9 per cent., as against 7.4 per cent. From 
25 to 34, the per cent, of the illiteracy of the foreigner is 
23.3 per cent., just twice the percentage of the Negro at 
that age period, 11.8 per cent.; from 35 to 44 years of age, 
the illiteracy of the Negroes is 18.8 per cent., and that of 
the foreign-born is 20.8 per cent. The younger generation 
of Negroes who were born since the close of the Civil War, 
varying in age from 10 to 44 years, inclusive, have among 
them about one-half the percentage of the illiterates as have 
the foreign immigrants of the same age. But among the 



A Study In Economic History 129 

older generation of Negroes, born prior to the Civil War, 
there are proportionately more illiterates than among the 
foreigners of the same age. In the State there were in 1900 
191,706 foreigners and 19,532 Negroes who could not read 
and write their names; there were 133,349 illiterate for- 
eigners and 11,311 illiterate Negroes under 45 years of age. 
In all there were ten illiterate foreigners to one illiterate 
Negro ; and twelve illiterate foreigners between the ages of 
10 and 45, to one illiterate Negro of that age. The rapid 
decrease of the illiteracy of the Negroes is due to the su- 
perior educational advantages which they have in the State 
of Pennsylvania as compared with the South. A very im- 
portant factor also is the compulsory educational law, which, 
though not rigidly enough enforced in the large cities, is a 
great advantage to the child whose parents are indifferent 
as to education. 

Inquiry was instituted among forty-four colleges in the 
State to find out just to what extent they had been of in- 
fluence upon the life of the Pennsylvania Negroes. One 
of these, Lincoln University was established especially for 
Negroes. Of the remaining forty-three, Negroes had at- 
tended but few, mainly the University of Pennsylvania, the 
Western University of Pennsylvania, Temple College, Al- 
legheny College at Meadville, Dickinson College at Car- 
isle, Washington and Jefferson College at Washington. 
Sixteen of the colleges which answered inquiries said that 
they had never had any Negro students whatever. Two 
religious institutions replied that they would not receive 
Negro students, one saying: "The Moravian Seminary is 
exclusively for white young ladies;" the other, St. Vincent's 
College, Beatty, Pennsylvania: "We would not take any 
Negro students now." The secretary of the Westminster 
College, New Wilmington, after stating that no Negro had 

9 



130 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

ever entered, adds: "It has been the policy of our church to 
make Knoxville (Tennessee) College our denominational 
center for Negro education." Of those which had had Ne- 
gro students, the following replies were received : From 
Beaver College, "We have never had any Negroes in our 
college with the exception of a very few in the music de- 
partment, who were always good students ; none ever grad- 
uated here." From the Moravian College and Theological 
Seminary, Bethlehem, "We once had a mulatto, J. C. 
Moore, son of a missionary from Demarara, South America, 
who came to us from the college at Georgetown, Demarara ; 
he spent four years here (1896-1900), taking a two years' 
theological course, and showing fair ability." Susquehanna 
University, Selinsgrove, had one Negro from Africa about 
twenty-two years ago. Nothing more is said of him. 
Juniata College, Huntingdon, has enrolled only two Ne- 
groes — "a young man in the preparatory work, about ten 
years ago ; and a young lady in the preparatory work, about 
three years ago." Nothing more is said of them. The sec- 
retary of Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, 
writes : "John C. Asbury, through Freshman year, the best 
of all our colored students, studied law and practiced in 
Norfolk, Virginia, elected District Attorney ; of Class of 1885." 
(Mr. Asbury is now editor of the Odd Fellows' Journal, with 
headquarters at Philadelphia.) Graduates: (1) F. J. LeMoyne 
Johnson, '94; M. D. University of, Pennsylvania '97; died 
about 1900. (2) Frederick Douglass Johnson, 1901, M.D. (3) 
Welcome T. Jones, M.D., now practicing at Newport News, 
Va. A few others have been in college for a while." 

Only one Negro has ever been a student of Lehigh, 
and he died about a year after entering. One student at- 
tended Lebanon Valley College, at Annville, graduating in 
1902. He is Charles Alfred Tennyson Sumner, now a teach- 



A Study In Economic History 131 



er in the Albert Academy, Freetown, West Africa, a mis- 
sion school under the United Brethren in Christ. One Ne- 
gro has graduated from Allegheny College, Meadville, in 
1880. He is William Charles Jason, now president of the 
Delaware State College; he has since had the degrees of 
A.M. and D. D. conferred upon him. From Dickinson Col- 
lege, the following comes: "I know of but one Negro grad- 
uate, namely, Mr. J. R. P. Brock, 1901, who was of the Phi 
Beta Kappa rank, and a very excellent man; now teaching 
in Baltimore, Md." The dean of the College Department 
of Temple College, writes: "There have been Negro stu- 
dents in the school ever since it has been opened. We had 
one very bright student graduate from the Medical School 
last year. He passed successfully his State Board examina- 
tion, and is now practicing in this city. His name is Jo- 
seph Paul Hudgins. G. Edward Dickerson, this city, grad- 
uated in 1901 from the Law School, and is, I believe, very 
successful. Miss Elaine Triggs will graduate from the Do- 
mestic Art Course in June, 1907; and Mr. J. T. Winder will 
complete the College Preparatory course, expecting to en- 
ter Harvard next fall. We have had a number of Negro 
students in our Theological School, but they have all, or 
nearly all, dropped by the wayside. There is a very excep- 
tional student, a West Indian, taking the course at the pres- 
ent time. These that I have mentioned have all held their 
own with the very best white students." Geneva College, 
Beaver Falls, reports Negro students, stating, "We have 
Negro women every year. When in school we find that 
they do as well as whites." The Pennsylvania State Col- 
lege reported two students, but no graduates. No Negro 
women have ever applied for admission at Bryn Mawr. A 
graduate of the Central High School — Alain LeRoy Locke, 
of Philadelphia, won the Cecil Rhodes Scholarship to Ox- 



132 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

ford University, England, in 1907. Mr. Locke graduated 
from Harvard in the Class of 1907, winning the Bowdoin 
prize. From the College and Engineering School of the 
Western University of Pennsylvania, of Pittsburg, there 
have been eight graduates. Two with the degree of A.B., 
B.S. ; three with C.E. ; and two with E.E. All of these stu- 
dents were beneficiaries of the Avery Scholarship Fund, es- 
tablished by Charles Avery. These scholarships were 
twelve in number and provided for the payment of $100 
upon the term bill of the beneficiaries (who must be color- 
ed males) in the College, or Engineering School. Of the 
above graduates the Registrar writes : "Of the A.B.'s, one 
is studying law, the other is editor of a newspaper, Charles- 
ton, W. Va. Of the engineers, I have no extended personal 
knowledge. I believe, however, that they are all in posi- 
tions of a character corresponding to the special nature of 
their preparation. One of them has, I understand, done 
some original work in the lines of perfecting railway sig- 
nals. This is Mr. W. H. Damond, C.E., 1893, who at last 
accounts was with the Michigan Central Railroad." At 
present ten of the Avery scholarships are taken. Besides 
these, there is one young woman in the College Depart- 
ment. From the professional schools, especially Medicine, 
there have been a dozen or more graduates. The enroll- 
ment November, 1907, was 26, 11 in the College and Engin- 
eering School, 9 in the Medical School, 4 in the Pharma- 
ceutical, and 2 in the Law School. 

In 1907 Negroes were enrolled only in the following- 
Colleges : Allegheny College, Meadeville, which has two 
Negro students ; Geneva College, Beaver Falls ; Pennsyl- 
vania State College, Temple College, the University of 
Pennsyvania, and the Western University of Pennsyl- 
vania. The colleges of the State evidently have had but 



A Study In Economic History 133 



small influence upon the Pennsylvania Negroes. Indeed, 
quite as many Negroes have attended and graduated from 
colleges outside of Pennsylvania, as from the colleges of 
their native State. Harvard University has had several Ne- 
gro students from Pennsylvania, and three graduates ; so 
had Oberlin College, and several smaller colleges. 

More Negroes have graduated from the professional 
schools than from the colleges. Twenty-six have gradu- 
ated from the Medical Department of the University of 
Pennsylvania. As a rule, these men have been successful. 
One Dr. S. P. Lloyd, of Savannah, Georgia, was appointed 
city physician of his native town, and was the first Negro 
in the South to hold such a position. Another, Dr. N. F. 
Mossell, established the Frederick Douglass Hospital in 
Philadelphia. There are at present five medical students, 
two from Pennsylvania ; the others from the South. There 
have been five Negroes to graduate from the Legal Depart- 
ment, who are practicing in Philadelphia. Five Negroes 
are members of the Department of Veterinary Medicine, 
from which one Negro graduated in 1897. Two Negroes 
have been granted the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ; one 
of whom is L. B. Moore, Dean of the Teachers' College of 
Howard University, of Washington, D. C, and the other, 
Rev. Pezavia O'Connell, District Superintendent of the M. 
E. Church in Maryland. Negroes have also graduated from 
the Jefferson Medical College, Hahnemann, and the Medico- 
Chirurgical College, Drexel Institute, the Pennsylvania 
School of Industrial Art, and have studied at the Academy 
of the Fine Arts. Henry O. Tanner, the Negro Artist, of 
Paris, France, studied at both the last named institutions, 
and is one of the most distinguished of the former students. 
Another of the former art students is Miss Vaux Warrick, 
the creator of a set of models of 150 characters represent- 



134 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

ing the history of the Negro race in America, for which 
she was awarded a gold medal at the Jamestown Exposi- 
tion. 

Although the private primary schools have generally 
disappeared because of the public schools, there exists a 
half dozen private institutions for technical and secondary 
education, such as is given by the State only to a limited de- 
gree. The oldest and most prominent of these are : The 
Institute for Colored Youths, Cheyney ; Lincoln University, 
Chester County; the Avery Institute, Pittsburg; the Berean 
Manual Training and Industrial School, Philadelphia; 
Downingtown Industrial School, and the Paoli School, 
Paoli. 

The Institute for Colored Youths has held a unique 
place in the history of Pennsylvania Negroes, and especially 
those of Philadelphia. Richard Humphreys, who made his 
wealth from slaves, made the following provision in his 
will, dated February 18, 1829: "I give and bequeath unto 
my friends * * * the sum of ten thousand dollars 
* * * having for its object the benevolent design of in- 
structing the descendants of the African race in school 
learning, in the various branches of the mechanic arts and 
trades, and in agriculture, in order to prepare, fit and qualify 
them to act as teachers." He died in 1832. This $10,000 
was the nucleus for the Institute for Colored Youths. In 
1837, the institute was founded and located in Philadel- 
phia; in 1842 it was chartered by the State. In 1844, Jono- 
than Zane gave another large sum to the institute. From 
1846 to 1 85 1 not much was done except the conducting of a 
, night school. In 185 1 buildings were erected on Lombard 
Street, and from that time the influence of the institute be- 
gan to be felt all over the city. Mr. Charles L. Reason, of 
New York, one of the best educated Negroes of his day, 



A Study In Economic History 135 

was made principal in 1852, but only remained till 1854, 
when he was succeeded by Professor Ebenezer Don Carlos 
Bassett, another Negro and a graduate of the New Britain, 
Connecticut, State Normal School. In 1868, Professor Bas- 
sett was succeeded by Miss Fanny M. Jackson, a graduate 
of the Rhode Island State Normal School, and also a Bache- 
lor of Arts and Master of Arts of Oberlin College, Ohio. 
Miss Jackson, who became Mrs. L. J. Coppin in 1882, was 
the principal until 1902, a term of thirty-four years. Dur- 
ing this period the chief work of the institution was literary 
and it attained a very creditable reputation throughout the 
North. All of the teachers were Negroes and included grad- 
uates from Oberlin College, Harvard College, Lincoln Uni- 
versity, Wilberforce University, Yale College and other in- 
stitutions. From 1856 to 1902, there were 412 graduates, 
of whom 71 are known to be deceased. Many cannot be locat- 
ed. The occupation of 156 of them are as follows: Teachers, 
104 ; physicians, 1 1 ; dentists, 3 ; lawyers, 7 ; clergymen, 
5; Government clerks (Washington), 6; Post Office clerks, 
(Philadelphia), 8; other clerical service, 5; real estate, 
2 ; editors, 2 ; bookkeepers, 2 ; electrician, 1 ; architect 
1; tailor, 1; undertaker, 1. The institute furnished a 
large number of Negro teachers to the South after the 
Civil War, and to-day many of the most prominent posi- 
tions in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania are held by 
its graduates and former students. It has furnished seven 
principals of Philadelphia public schools; three of whom are 
now serving, one of whom has taught more than forty 
years in the city. It has furnished eight principals in New 
Jersey, six of whom are now serving; one in Delaware, one 
in Washington, D. C, and several in smaller cities of Penn- 
sylvania. Twenty-five of its graduates have taken higher 
courses at Lincoln University, Howard University, Univer- 



136 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

in the country. It was very possibly inspired by the efforts of 
several Negroes, who desired to have higher training to fit 
themselves for the ministry. The actual organizer of the 
school, however, was the Rev. John W. Dickey, a Presby- 
terian clergyman, who had been giving a Mr. James R. Amos 
private lessons. In 1853, the New Castle Presbytery took 
steps to establish a school for the Christian education of the 
Negroes; and in 1854, Ashmun Institute secured its charter 
from the State of Pennsylvania. The school opened formally 
January 1, 1857. In 1866, the name of the Institution was 
changed from Ashmun Institute, to Lincoln University, Ches- 
ter County, Pennsylvania. The departments are the College 
and the Theological Seminary, the latter alone being under 
the control of the Presbyterian Church of America. The 
property consists of one hundred and thirty-two acres of 
land in lower Oxford Township, Chester County; 12 build- 
ings, endowments and apparatus. The heating plant alone 
cost about $30,000. There are eleven "officers of instruction 
and government," all of whom are white. There are three 
additional instructors in the college department, who are also 
students. These are Negroes. During the year 1907-8 there 
were 94 students coming from twenty-three different States. 
The largest number from a single State was thirty-four, from 
Pennsylvania. The aims of the institution are thus set forth 
in the catalogue and announcement : 

"The design of Lincoln University, as embodied in its 
character, is to provide intelligent Christian helpers for our 
Negro population, for Africans in their ancestral continent 
or scattered throughout the world. Every thousand laborers 
and mechanics and farmers need a pious, well educated de- 
voted minister. Of the 10,000 educated ministers of the Gos- 
pel required to meet this necessity, not as many as 2,000 have 
been thus qualified by all the Churches to fulfill in part their 
duty toward the Negroes. Every fifty children need a com- 



A Study In Economic History 137 

sity of Pennsylvania, Wilberforce University, Yale Univer- 
sity and Hahnemann Medical College. One of its students 
studied very acceptably in Edinburgh University, Scotland. 
With a more liberal attitude toward the Negroes and better 
opportunities in the public schools the special work of the In- 
stitute in the city was thought by the Board of Management 
to have been complete and in 1903 the school was reorgan- 
ized and removed to Cheyney, about twenty miles from Phil- 
adelphia. Here on a tract of 117 acres, several buildings 
were erected and instruction is given in normal school work, 
domestic science, mechanical arts, including cooking, sew- 
ing, dressmaking, millinery, raffia work, carpentry and wood- 
work, forging and blacksmithing, together with mechanical 
drawing necessary to these operations. 

Rev. Charles Avery, a merchant minister, of New York and 
Pittsburg, was one of the most practical friends of the Ne- 
groes before the war. Besides contributing generously to the 
poor, he left large endowments to their churches, and for their 
churches, and for their uplift, both in Africa and America. 
He gave $25,000 as an endowment for a school for Negroes, 
which was established in 1849, and known as Avery Col- 
lege. Its charter gives the right to confer degrees. The 
school held a prominent place in the early history of Alle- 
gheny County but with the development of the free public 
school system of later years, it has been of less influence in 
purely literary work and devoted its attention more to indus- 
trial work. The course includes; ordinary English branches, 
dressmaking, millinery, cooking, laundering, table waiting, 
bookkeeping for girls and tailoring for boys. Carpentering, 
bricklaying and other mechanical trades were taught but 
have been suspended. The enrollment rarely reaches 100 pu- 
pils. The principal is a Negro, and the teachers are of both 
races. 

Lincoln University is one of the largest Negro colleges 



138 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

petent, conscientious teacher. The highest skill in trades 
and other manual industries will not alone qualify and one 
to be a preacher to a congregation of sinners, or to be the 
pastor of a flock of believers, or to be a teacher of a com- 
munity of youth in the moralities of life. Lincoln Univer- 
sity is pledged by its charter and by the trusts which it has 
accepted, to apply all its resources hitherto received to pro- 
mote this higher education of the man in the mechanic, of 
the family in the community and of the immortal in this pres- 
ent life." 

"The higher Christian education of the Negro is one of 
his highest necessities. He must have the higher education be- 
cause he is a man having the high dignity of being made 
in the image of God. His higher wants and their supply 
cannot be deferred to his physical needs without peril to his 
spiritual nature. Manual industry is not in itself a prelude to 
religion. Skilled workmen are not thereby Christians. In- 
dustry is God's law ; but it must be sanctified to be a blessing. 
We are reconciled to work because it is God's ordinance, and 
He makes it a blessing to all who keep His law of six days' 
work, and Sabbath change from manual labor to religious 
work. The only way to make education Christian is to teach 
the Christian religion to the student. This is the natural duty 
of the parents. But when the parents are incompetent through 
ignorance, or are prevented by the necessity of protracted 
and exhausting toil, it is the province and duty of the Church 
to lend a helping and guiding hand." 

Lincoln University has sent its students into nearly every 
State in the L T nion where they have done and are doing ef- 
fective service largely as ministers, teachers and physicians. 
In Philadelphia more than a score of professional men were 
graduates from this institution. 

The Berean Manual Training and Industrial School, 
Philadelphia, grew out of the work of the Rev. Matthew An- 



A Study In Economic History 139 

derson, as pastor of the Berean Presbyterian Church. It was 
organized in 1899, opened in February, 1900, and has been 
operated principally as a night school. It was incorporated in 
1904, and since then has been a distinct institution from the 
church. Beginning with less than fifty pupils, its enrollment 
was more than two hundred during the past year. The 
branches taught are English, mathematics, penmanship, short- 
hand and typewriting, bookkeeping, dressmaking, cooking, 
millinery, housekeeping, carpentry, bricklaying, architectural 
and mechanical drawing, practical work in electricity and 
printing. The teachers are mainly Negroes. The pupils are 
generally young men and women, who during the day earn 
their own living at manual work. The last legislature made 
an appropriation to this school. Its chief support is from vol- 
untary contributions. 

The Downingtown Industrial School, Downingtown, is 
a new institution, started in 1905, and grew out of the work 
of the Rev. Dr. William A. Creditt, pastor of the First African 
(Cherry Memorial) Baptist Church, and its purpose is to 
meet the increasing need of Negro youth for industrial as well 
as literary training. It also acts as a preparatory school for 
Lincoln University. The enrollment for the year 1906-7 was 
65. Its largest building, Pennsylvania Hall, was erected en- 
tirely by Negro mechanics. A full industrial course is to be 
offered. The teachers are all Negroes. The chief source of 
income is voluntary contributions. There is no endowment. 
The state legislature has made appropriations to aid this insti- 
tution. 



140 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



CRIME AMONG NEGROES. 



It is important that a careful and somewhat detailed study 
of the subject of crime among Negroes be made. A consid- 
eration of some of the fundamental facts of criminalogy may 
serve for a proper introduction to the subject; for the same 
principles which enter into crime in general, must be active in, 
crimes of Negroes. 

A crime is an infraction of any legal enactment whose pur- 
pose is to preserve peace, common order and decency, as in- 
terpreted by the social group. There is no absolute uniformity 
as to what constitutes a crime in all countries, or all parts of 
the country. It is a crime in Georgia punishable by a heavy 
fine and imprisonment, for Negroes and whites to marry ; but 
it is no crime in Pennsylvania and New York. It is a crime 
in Pennsylvania to employ a child under the age of fourteen 
years but it is not in Mississippi. Furthermore, as it is true 
what constitutes a crime is not uniform, it is also apparent that 
the mere number of crimes committed, does not represent with 
any accuracy the moral status, or even the criminality of a 
people. For in a complex community it is harder to escape 
crime, than in a simple community. In judging criminality, 
the environment must be considered as to complexity. The 
criminality of one community, other things being equal, is to 
the criminality of another about as the proportion between the 
possible crimes and actual crimes. 

In popular writings, concerning the crimes of Negroes, 
the number of arrests has often been taken as the measure 
of crime. But arrests do not give an accurate picture of crime 
and especially for comparing one group with another. Hun- 
dreds of persons are annualy arrested who have not committed 
any crime whatsoever, and hundreds escape who have com- 



A Study In Economic History 141 

mitted crimes. It is better to compare convictions, although 
absolute accuracy cannot be obtained even by this method ; for 
since a large number of criminals are never arrested, they 
cannot be convicted ; also some guilty persons, who are ar- 
rested, escape conviction. Even here, another serious error is 
possible. For it is conceivable that one place may be much 
more criminal than another though the latter has proportion- 
ately more convictions. In the first place, each arrest and con- 
viction lessens the criminality. For example, when Philadel- 

r — 

phia's "Tenderloin" was "wide open," it was conceded that 
there was much crime; liquor was sold freely on Sunday, and 
without license, bawdy houses flourished and prostitutes openly 
plied their trade in the streets ; pick-pockets, sneak thieves, 
hold-up men and petty gamblers were practically undisturbed, 
and policy shops did a large business among the ignorant poor. 
There were fewer arrests and fewer convictions than at a later 
time when the laws were more rigidly enforced. But there 
may have been more, rather than less crime. When the city 
tried in the popular phrase to "close up" the resorts the actual 
amount of crime in the community was diminished, but the 
arrests and convictions for awhile increased. The real change 
was in the enforcing of the law against crime and not in the 
increase of crime; crime was really on the decrease. Only, 
therefore, when there is uniformity in the administration of 
executive and judicial machinery, both as to arrests and con- 
vicitions, can either of these be taken as guides for comparison 
with any degree of accuracy. 

But when there is uniform enforcement, the mere number 
of convictions would not mean much. An analysis of the of- 
fenses must be made. For general convenience, the division 
into petty offenses or misdemeanors and gross offenses or 
felonies, is used. It may be that a dozen petty offenses may 
not be as far reaching as one gross offense. If forty men 



142 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



are taken in a crap game, and sentenced to five days confine- 
ment in the county prison, there are forty arrested and forty 
convictions ; but the amount of criminality represented is com- 
paratively small. Crap shooting is not a very great crime. 
It affects few, if any more people than those engaged in it. 
Few fortunes are lost at it ; few families suffer because of it 
and society is but little affected. On the other hand, a bank 
official may misuse the funds of his institution and be arrested 
and convicted. But he counts for only one. It is therefore 
clear that mere statistics of arrests and convictions, will here 
be misleading; for this last named criminal many have op- 
erated systematically for years, ruining many people, debauch- 
ing society, as well as corrupting finance, causing public con- 
fidence to be shaken, with harm to himself, his own family 
and many other families. The actual bad moral influence 
of the forty crap shooters is not to be compared with that 
of the bank defalcator, but in statistics, it appears forty times 
as great, which of course is absurd. And of course if the 
banker is never arrested or escapes on a technicality, the 
absurdity is increased. 

When it comes to comparison of crime among the 
Negroes with that of the larger community, there are even 
greater, difficulties. First, there is the historical difficulty. 
Historically, Negroes have had to prove their innocence and 
not their prosecutors prove their guilt. Under the Laws of 
Slavery, T. R. R. Cobb, an eminent Southern jurist, wrote : 

"Reasons of policy and necessity, so long as two races of 
men live together, the one as masters and the other as de- 
pendents and slaves, demand that to a certain extent, all of 
the superior race shall exercise a controlling power over the 
inferior. Hence, have arisen in the states, the various police 
and patrol regulations, giving to white persons other than 



A Study In Economic History 143 



the master, under certain circumstances, the right of con- 
trolling, and in some cases, correcting slaves." 

Thus, in most of the Southern states, the police system 
was primarily for Negroes and not for whites. Another 
historical factor relates to the crimes for which Negroes can 
be arrested. Historically, any word of protest against a white 
man by a Negro was insolence or disorderly conduct; and it 
was a serious crime for a Negro to strike or "presume to 
strike" a white person ; but a white man was simply exer- 
cising his right as a member of the "superior" caste in abus- 
ing the Negro, and could strike him with impunity, only 
some laws prohibited maiming and killing. A box of the ears 
was no crime when given by a white to a black, but the reverse 
was punishable by flogging. This was true by law or custom 
of every Southern state, and by law in many Northern States. 

A further and most important historical factor is the 
credibility of witnesses. By law in most Southern States, 
and some Northern States, a Negro could not testify against 
a white man even for himself. In some cases several Negroes 
would not, to the contrary, be strong enough according to 
the law, to outweigh the testimony of one white person. It 
cannot be doubted that these historical factors have a very de- 
cided influence in the cases of Negroes in our courts to-day, 
even in the North, while the best observers agree that there is 
but little possibility of obtaining justice for a lone Negro 
against a white man in the South, except in rare cases. Then 
there is the condition of poverty. The crimes of the poor 
are generally their vices, which affect them more than the 
community ; but the vices of the well-to-do are seldom termed 
criminal, unless they become of great social concern. A 
fashionable set may give a euchre or a bridge party and 
hundreds of dollars may change hands and women earn their 



144 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



"pin" money thereby; but no one disturbs them, unless they 
become too bold. The "drunks" of a fashionable club, or a 
student "lark" are sent home in cabs, undisturbed, while the 
poor man, who has to walk home, is often arrested. The 
shop-lifter of means, is too often merely a "kleptomaniac," 
while the poor woman is a thief. These facts should be con- 
sidered when it is remembered that "drunks" and "disorder- 
lies" and petty larcenies are chief causes for running up the 
statistics of arrests and convictions among the poor. Negroes 
of the cities, being largely among the poor, must be affected 
by the differences which poverty makes in these matters. Then 
there is the matter of the trial after arrests. Even before 
justice, poverty suffers. 

Coming to the subject of criminality of Negroes in Penn- 
sylvania, it is clear that nothing more than mere tendencies 
can be pointed out. For the available data are too meagre 
for anything else. There are no separate statistics of ar- 
rests, or convictions for Negroes in the state as a whole. The 
only statistics published for the state are those of prisoners 
in jails and penitentiaries. The city of Philadelphia published 
the number of Negroes arrested, but this is of little value, 
as no hint is given of the causes for the arrests. The city 
of Pittsburg publishes no statistics, not even the number of 
arrests of Negroes. With the data available it is impossible 
to reach any but tentative conclusions. The increase of ar- 
rests in Philadelphia may, however, be compared with the 
ratio of the increase in population, and if it is found that the 
arrests have increased more rapidly than the population, this 
may represent an increased tendency to criminality. On the 
other hand, if arrests have not increased as rapidly as the 
population, the opposite tendency may be noted. For this 
comparison, the number of arrests in Philadelphia from 1864 



A Study In Economic History 145 



to 1907 is available from the report of the police department, 
and the increase of population is shown by the census. The 
following table exhibits the comparison : 



Year. 

i860 

1864 

1865 

1869 

1870 

1873 

1874 

1875 

1877 

1879 

1880 

1881 

1882 

1883 

18S4 

1885 

1887 

18SS 

1890 

1891 

1892 

1893 
1804 

1895 
1896 

1897 
189^ 
1899 
1900 
1901 
1902 
1903 
1904 





Number of 


Per Cent. 


of P.C. 


of Inc. 


Population. 


Arrests. 


Population A 


rrests. 


22,185 


3,422 
2,722 

3,907 


— 






22,147 


2,070 
1,380 
1.257 
i,539 
2,524 
2,360 


1.7* 




39-5* 


31,699 


2,204 

2,327 
2,183 
2,022 

2,134 
2,622 

3,256 
2,910 


43-1 




6.6 


39,3/i 


3,167 
3,544 
3,431 
4,078 

4,905 
5.137 
5,302 

5.893 
5,8o6 
6,052 


24.2 




437 


62,613 


6,531 
6,519 
6,711 
8,140 
7,8n 


59-0 




106.2 



(* Decrease.) 

These figures do not show any regular increase from year 
to year. For instance, the arrests for 1864 were more than 
those for 1865, or any one of the years from 1870 to 1890. In 
41 years from 1864 to 1904 inclusive, the increase in arrests 

10 



146 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

was 128.2 per cent.; from 1879 to 1904 inclusive, 277.3 P er 
cent. ; from 1880 to 1904, 254.4 per cent. In other words, the 
percentage of increase is more or less, according to the years 
taken. From 1864 to 1870, both arrests and population de- 
creased ; but arrests decreased 40 per cent, and population 
1.7 per cent. From 1870 to 1880, the arrests increased 6.5 per 
cent. ; but in the same time the Negro population increased 
43.7 per cent, and the total population 24.2 per cent., while 
from 1890 to 1900 the arrests increased 106.2 per cent, and 
the population 59.0 per cent. These percentages, so far as 
arrests are concerned, are entirely due to accident. If the 
figures of one year are taken they are more ; if another, less ; 
from 1864 to 1869, arrests increased 14 per cent, but if we 
take the next year, it decreased 40 per cent.; or from 1900 
to 1903, there was an increase of 23.1 per cent., while if 
we take the increase from 1900 to 1904, close scrutiny of 
these figures leads to the conclusion as far as there can be 
any conclusion, that the increase of crime among Negroes has 
not been as great as compared with the increase of the Negro 
population. Only when crime increases more rapidly than 
population, can it be said that the group or community is in- 
creasing in criminality. 

In 1849, Edward Needles, reporting on the condition of 
Negroes as to crime in Philadelphia, published the following 
table showing the Negro prisoners received in the Eastern 
Penitentiary from 1829 to 1849, in periods of five years : 



Years Total received 


Average 


per year 


1829-1835 124 




24.8 


1835-1840 321 




64.2 


1 840- 1 845 209 




41.8 


1845-1849 116 




31-5 


1849-1849X 115 




26.75 



A Study In Economic History 147 

The total number of Negroes received in the Eastern 
Penitentiary during 21 years reported by Mr. Needles, was 780, 
an average of 37.1 prisoners per year. For the past twenty- 
eight years from 1880 to 1907, the number of Negro prisoners 
admitted to the Eastern Penitentiary has been as follows : 

Negro prisoners admitted to Eastern Penitentiary, 1880 
to 1907: 



Year Total 


admitted 


Year 


Total admitted 


1880 


70 


i895 


109 


1881 


55 


1896 


126 


1882 


3 2 


1897 


69 


1883 


76 


1898 


80 


1884 


75 


1899 


103 


1885 


78 


1900 


84 


1886 


72 


1901 


83 


1887 


7i 


1902 


128 


1888 


7i 


1903 


99 


1889 


85 


1904 


134 


1891 


161 


1905 


87 


189 1 


68 


1906 


120 


1893 


117 






1894 


127 






Total 


2,517 



The above figures of prisoners admitted to the Eastern 
Penitentiary, like the figures of arrests, cannot show con- 
clusively the amount of criminality yet they do reflect a 
tendency. But as in the case of the statistics of arrests, so 
those of prisoners show no regular increase from year to 
year, but considerable fluctuation. There were fewer prisoners 
admitted to the Eastern Penitentiary during the year 1907, 
just closed, than the year 1897, ten years previous. There 
were fewer in 1906 than in 1896; fewer in 1905 than in 1895. 
There are twice as many in 1904 as in 1897, yet the very 



148 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

next year, 1905, the number admitted falls off nearly 40 per 
cent., only to rise again in 1906, and fall again in 1907, thus 
showing how difficult it is to make a comparison. We may, 
however, make a fair comparison by contrasting periods of 
greater or less length. For this purpose, these figures of the 
Eastern Penitentiary given above, may be compared with 
those of the earlier period, given by Mr. Needles, on the 
preceding page. During the period from 1829 to 1849, m ~ 
clusive, according to Mr. Needles' report, 780 Negro prison- 
ers were admitted to the Eastern Penitentiary, an average 
of 37.1 per year. During the latter period, from 1880 to 
1907 inclusive, 2,517 were admitted, an average of 89.9 per 
year. The increase, therefore, of Negro prisoners admitted 
to the Eastern Penitentiary during the latter period was 
141.8 per cent., as compared with the earlier period. The 
average population of Negroes of the state during the earlier 
period was 46,626 (i. e., the population in 1830 was 38,333; 
in 1840, 47,918; in 1850, 53,626) and during the latter period 
was 116,659, (i- e > i n 1880, 85,535; in 1890, 107,596; and in 
1900, 156,845). The increase of the average Negro popula- 
tion in the later over the earlier period was 150.2 per cent. 
By this test it appears that the number of prisoners increased 
less rapidly than the population of Negroes. 

The above comparison of arrests and prisoners admitted 
to the penitentiary may justify the conclusion that the ac- 
tual amount of crime among Negroes has increased more 
rapidly than the Negro population. A fair and conservative 
conclusion from the data present would be that crime among 
Negroes as compared with the growth of the Negro popula- 
tion has relatively decreased. 

Since no official statistics of the nature of crimes com- 
mitted by Negroes are published in this state, a detailed study 
of the police records of one section of Philadelphia is here 



A Study In Economic History 149 

presented. The section chosen was the Nineteenth Police 
District of Philadelphia. This includes the Seventh Ward, 
which is the largest ward in the city so far as Negro popula- 
tion is concerned. It also includes more of the poorest and 
least efficient Negroes than any other ward in the city. Al- 
though only one-sixth of the Negroes live in this ward, nearly 
a third of the arrests are made within its bounds. The dis- 
trict, therefore, is not the most favorable to the Negro and 
will in no sense exaggerate the better side. During the year 
1906, there were 2237 Negroes arrested in the Ninteenth Dis- 
trict. 

More than half of these arrests were on the five charges 
of disorderly conduct, breach of the peace, drunkenness, drunk 
and disorderly conduct, and shooting crap, for which ar- 
rests were as follows : Disorderly conduct, 428 ; breach of 
the peace, 275; drunk, 204; drunk and disorderly, 157; shoot- 
ing crap, 86; making a total of n 50. Other arrests for of- 
fenses of a trivial nature were : 10 for acting suspiciously ; 53 
for corner lounging, and 8 for blocking cars, trespassing, and 
impersonating officers. Seventeen were arrested to be held 
as witnesses ; nineteen for malicious mischief ; while eighty- 
eight were arrested on suspicions of various kinds and one 
hundred and eight were arrested for being inmates of dis- 
orderly houses. The more serious causes of arrests were : 
140 for larceny and 1 for murder; 1 for accessory to murder; 
5 for burglary; 13 for highway robbery; 154 for assault and 
battery ; 46 for aggravated assault and battery ; 5 for rape ; 1 
for robbery ; 1 for shooting man ; 1 for immorality and ne- 
glect of children ; 6 for fornication and bastardy ; 40 for non- 
support ; 58 were held for violating the liquor license law and 
84 for keeping disorderly houses. About one-third of those 
arrested were held on serious charges. 

A method of arrest practiced commonly among the poorer 



150 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



districts known as the raid, is employed very effectively in the 
19th District, for the suppression of liquor selling on Sun- 
day, or without license, gambling and bawdy houses. The 
parties who are caught in the house are generally taken to 
the police station and entered, the paraphernalia seized, the 
owner bound over to the grand jury and the inmates either 
discharged or given light sentences. The first thing is for 
the place suspected of violating the law, to be watched and 
if possible, entered in order to get evidence. This is done 
chiefly by the detectives of the Law and Order Society. 
Having evidence, a warrant is sworn out for the owner or 
operator. Not only is the operator taken, but all who are 
found in the place. The number of arrests ranges from two 
to more than thirty. This, of course, runs up the criminal 
statistics of Negroes. For example, July 14, 1906, in the terri- 
tory of the 19th District, eight raids were made, one result- 
ing in the arrest of 46 persons. On the next Sunday in one 
raid 34 persons were taken. The following is the record in 
the police station : 

1. July, 14, 1906, house at No. S. Camac Street, 

raided ; 5 men and two women taken ; charge, selling liquor 
on Sunday, and without license; the four "inmates" dis- 
charged, the keeper bound over to grand jury. 

2. Same date, same charge, No. Jessup Street, .5 

arrested, all women; sentence, 10 days imprisonment for 
each. 

3. Same date, same charge, No. S. Eleventh Street, 

6 arrested, 4 women; sentence, all discharged except pro- 
prietor, who was held under bond. 

4. Same date, same charge, No. Lombard Street, 

15 arrested ; all men, given 10 days in county prison. 

5. Same date, same charge, No. Panama Street, 3 

arrested, all women, all discharged except proprietor. 



A Study In Economic History 151 

6. Same date, same charge, No. Pine Street, 3 ar- 
rested, all women, all discharged except proprietor. 

7. Same date, charge, keeping bawdy house, No. 

Panama Street, 4 arrested ; 3 women, all discharged except 
the proprietor. 

8. Same date, charge, keeping house, No. S. 

Eleventh Street ; 5 persons arrested, 3 women ; all discharged 
except proprietor. 

9. July 22, 1906, 1.45 A. M., No. Lombard Street, 

charge, shooting crap ; 34 arrested, all men ; given 10 days m 
county prison. 

Of the 2237 Negroes arrested during 1906, in the 19th 
District, at least 779, or 34.82 per cent., received no punish- 
ment whatever but were discharged after a preliminary hear- 
ing as shown in the table given. In the main, the cases were 
heard by the magistrate of the distirict and a large majority 
settled by him. Persons who were drunk were kept until 
they were sobered up, usually over night, and then dis- 
charged. Of the 204 drunks, 169 were discharged and only 
35 were held. Some were sent for a few days to the county 
prison and others to the hospital rather than to jail. Next 
to drunkenness comes disorderly conduct in the matter of 
light punishment; of the 428 who were arrested on this 
charge, 249 were discharged ; most of the remaining 179 who 
were not discharged at the magistrates' hearing were senten- 
ced to 5, 10, 15 or 30 days in the county prison; 3 months, 
6 months and as high as 1 year in the house of correction. 
For disorderly conduct, women as a rule were more harshly 
dealt with than men. Of the 275 arrested for "breach of 
peace," 131 were discharged. Some were bound over under 
$500 bond to keep the peace, and others were incarcerated 
for from 10 days to 1 year. Many of the cases of breach of 



1 52 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



peace were husbands and wives, who presumably had some 
trouble among themselves. They were sometimes discharged, 
sometimes one sentenced and the other discharged, often both 
sentenced. "Idle and disorderly characters" and vagrants, 
the first chiefly women, and the second men, received senten- 
ces from 10 days to 2 years in the county prison or house of 
correction. The keepers of gambling houses, bawdy houses 
and houses of ill fame, were bound over under bond of from 
$600 to $800. Of the 117 inmates of these places, 36 were 
discharged and most of the others were given from 5 to 30 
days or 3 months in the county prison or house of correction. 
Street loungers received generally from 10 to 20 days im- 
prisonment; crap shooters, 10 days and other minor offen- 
ces about the same. 

More than three-fourths of the cases were settled by the 
magistrate in the district. Most of the serious crimes which 
were not settled by the magistrate went to the grand jury. 
It has been impracticable to follow them through the higher 
courts. But many of those arrested on serious charges were 
released on preliminary hearing; 12 out of 140 arrests for 
larceny were discharged; 3 out of 13 for highway robbery; 
29 out of 154 for assault and battery; 2 out of 46 for aggra- 
vated assault and battery; 1 out of 20 for receiving stolen 
goods. What proportion of the remainder were convicted it 
is impossible to ascertain. It is certain, however, that only 
a small proportion of them were sent to the penitentiary; for 
only 33 colored persons were received at the Eastern Peni- 
tentiary from the whole of Philadelphia County during the 
year 1906 and only 36 during the year 1907. 

The table given above shows that in the Nineteenth Dis 
trict of Philadelphia of a total of 2237 persons arrested, 691 
or 30.8 per cent, were females. Of the eighty-five charges, on 



A Study In Economic History 153 



which there were arrests, females were arrested on seventy- 
five charges. The chief charges on which women were arrest- 
ed were as follows: Disorderly conduct, 152 arrests; breach 
of peace, 102; idle and disorderly characters, 70; drunk, 49; 
inmates of disorderly house, 45; drunk and disorderly, 41. On 
these six charges, 459, or about 66.4 per cent, of the arrests 
of females were made. Upon preliminary hearing, the major 
portion of these were dismissed or given a light sentence of 
thirty days or less. The more serious charges were: Selling 
liquor on Sundays without license, 35 arrests; assault and 
battery, 34 arrests; larceny, 31 arrests; keeping disorderly 
houses, 26 arrests; aggravated assault and battery, 8 arrests; 
1 arrest for murder; 22 on suspicion of larceny; 8 for 
threatening ; 10 for witnesses ; 6 for street walking. 

During the year 1907, no Negro females were admitted 
to the Eastern Penitentiary, but 9 were discharged, leaving 8 
Negro females in the institution January 1, 1908. The 
number of Negro females admitted from 1880 to 1889 in- 
clusive, was 55; from 1890 to 1899 inclusive, 60; from 1900 to 
1907, inclusive, 35, a total of 150 Negro females in 28 
years, an average of less than half a dozen per year. 

In the reformatories of the state there were in September, 
1904, 1,372 juvenile delinquents, of whom 1,137 were boys 
and 237 girls. During -the year from September, 1903, to 
September 10th, 1904, 699 were admitted, of whom 428 were 
in the House of Refuge, at Glen Mills and Philadelphia, and 
271 were at the Pennsylvania Reform School at Morganza, 
Washington County. In the latter institution were 42 colored 
children, 31 boys and 11 girls. In the former there were 12 
colored girls and the number of colored boys is not given. 
The average for the year was 58 girls in both institutions 
and 78 boys in the Reform School. 



154 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Of the 136 Negro children reported during 1904, 26 had 
been in the reformatories before. About one-fifth of those 
re-admitted were absent less than three months ; 29, from 
three to six months ; 27, from six to twelve months ; 1 from 
one to two years; 15, from two to three years and 5 from 
three to four years and over. 

Of the 568 children committed, five were nine years of 
age; 23 between nine and eleven years; 81 between eleven 
and twelve; 221 between thirteen and fifteen years; 235 be- 
tween fifteen and twenty years and three over twenty years 
of age. Of the eight Negro girls committed to the House of 
Refuge, only one had both parents living; of thirteen boys 
committed to the Reform School, the parents of four were 
living, while of seven girls three had both parents living ; while 
of the 48 white girls in the same House of Refuge, 24 had 
parents living and of the 37 to the Reform School, 30 had 
parents living and of the 109 boys in the latter institution, 
55 had both parents living. Hence, it appears that the lack 
of parental oversight must be a great factor since it is not 
the children with the homes as much as those without homes 
who fall into crime. 

The percentage of illiterates is much larger for the 
Negro children who go to the reformatories than for the 
white children. Sixty out of 540, 11.1 per cent, of the white 
boys and girls were illiterate; while six out of 28, or 21.4 
per cent, of the colored were wholly illiterate. 

The offenses for which Negro children are committed 
are simple as compared with those of the white children. In- 
corrigibility is the chief charge against the Negro children, 
and larceny the second. Other charges against Negro children 
were: assault and battery, delinquency and vagrancy. Half of 
the Negro girls entered in the House of Refuge were entered 



A Study In Economic History 155 

for larceny, while only about one-fourth of the white girls 
were entered on this charge. Forty per cent, of the Negro 
children entered in the Reform School were entered for 
larceny, while less than 34 per cent, of the whites were en- 
tered on this charge ; all of which reflects not a racial but the 
low economic position of the Negro family and the neglected 
condition of many Negro children. 

The lack of parental oversight over Negro children is 
a most potent cause of juvenile delinquency and crime and is 
but faintly reflected in the cases which come before the 
juvenile courts. Many children are left with friends and rela- 
tives, many do not have any care-taker whatever. In the 
slums of Philadelphia one may daily meet children who do 
not know their parents. Next to having no parents comes the 
work of women, as a cause of juvenile delinquency. It can- 
not be denied that the presence of the mother in the home 
when the child comes home from school, is a deterrent from 
temptation. Yet as has been shown, a large porportion of the 
women must work. And when they have a family, they must 
still keep at it. Thus it often happens that children are left 
in idleness and temptation. In one of the schools of the 
Seventh Ward, 41 out of 210 children in the first and second 
grades averaging in age between seven and eight years, or 
19.5 per cent, of the total were reported as having mothers 
but no fathers; 24 children, or 11.4 per cent., as having fathers 
but no mothers. Only 133 children or less than two-thirds of 
the whole number had both parents living. Of the 174 
children who had mothers, 114 or 65 per cent, were left by 
their mothers early in the morning, and on their return home 
found them away, as they were working out. In other words, 
in this school, 150 children out of 210 had no motherly care 
during the day, and all these children are under nine years, 



156 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

of age. Of the children in the higher grades, 3rd and 4th, a 
still larger proportion had neither fathers or mothers and 
were without parental care after school hours. In a German- 
town school a count was made of 108 pupils in all grades. 
Nineteen had no mother; 22 had no father. Of the 89 who 
had mothers, 46 of the mothers were working out, having to 
leave home before school hours and return after school dis- 
missed to find their children in the streets; that is, in this 
school 64 out of 108 children, or 59 per cent., had no ma- 
ternal oversight during the day. 

It is extremely difficult to compare the crime of Negroes 

with that of whites, because of the considerations previously 

given. -If the statistics of arrests alone were taken, it appears 

that the Negroes furnish twice as large a number of arrests 

as they ought in proportion to the population. The Negroes 

are about 5 per cent, of the population and furnished during 

the past eight years, 1900-1907, 10.4 per cent, of the arrests. 

But it has been seen that arrests alone mean very little in 

comparing criminality of different groups. The following 

table shows arrests in the city of Philadelphia from i860 to 

1907 inclusive : 

TOTAL ARRESTS, AND ARRESTS OF NEGROES COMPARED 
WITH GROWTH OF POPULATION. 

Negro 
Population. Arrests Popu- Percent, 

Year. Total. Negro. Total. Negro, lation. Arrests. 

i860 525.329 22,185 3-9 

1864 34.221 3,114 ... 9.1 

1865 43.226 2,722 ... 6.3 

1870 674,022 22,147 31.717 2,070 3.3 6.5 

1875 34,553 1,539 ••• 4-5 

1880 847,170 31,699 44,097 2,204 3,7 S-O 

1885 51,418 2,662 ... 5.1 

1890 1,046,964 39,371 49,148 3,i67 3-8 6.4 

1895 60,347 5,1.37 ..- 8.5 

1896 50.072 5,302 ... 9-i 

1897 62,628 5,893 

1898 62.907 5,806 



A Study In Economic History 157 



Negro. 
Population. Arrests. Popu- Percent. 

Year. Total. Negro. Total. Negro, lation. Arrests. 

1899 ...y 62,075 6,052 

1900 
1901 



1,293.697 62,613 65,360 6,531 4-8 9.9 

61,189 6,519 



ig 02 65,468 6,711 

1903 75.699 8,140 

1904 73.06l 7,811 

1905 



80,875 8.404 

1S06 8 3-325 8,733 

1907 85,863 8,904 

While the number of arrests of Negroes is far greater in 
proportion to the population than the arrests of whites, it 
is no greater than it was forty years ago. Immediately after 
the Civil War there was a comparative decrease in Negro ar- 
rests, but during the past three decades, there has been an 
increase so that now, the proportion between Negro arrests 
and white arrests as compared with the population is about 
the same as it was at the beginning of the Civil War. 

In the foregoing discussion it has been pointed out that, 
in proportion to the growth of population, crime is not greatly 
increasing among Negroes, if increasing at all. In compari- 
son with the white population so far as the proportion between 
the increase of crime and the increase of the population is 
concerned, the blacks hardly show any greater tendency to 
crime than they have always shown. But although there is 
no greater increase than is evident among the white portion 
of our population, there is about twice as large a proportion 
of Negro arrests and imprisonments as of whites. But this 
condition is not new ; it has existed for a century, not only 
in Pennsylvania, but in the country generally, the Negroes 
appear to have a larger proportion of arrests and prisoners 
than whites. The question therefore naturally arises, "Why 
is there a larger proportion of the Negroes than whites ar- 
rested and imprisoned?" Some light may be thrown upon 



158 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

this by the comparison of arrests in the Nineteenth District. 
Here there was but little difference between the number of 
arrests of Negroes and whites, who lived in close touch with 
one another and under somewhat similar circumstances. There 
does not seem to be anything of a special racial characteris- 
tic which makes for excessive criminality among Negroes. 
The excess of criminality merely indicates what the excess of 
illiteracy indicates, namely, a lower social efficiency. Com- 
pared with the whites of their economic group, there is but 
little difference. 

The Negroes of the higher economic group very rarely 
are among the criminals or have to appear in court because 
of criminal prosecution directed against them. They are not 
the college and high school graduates, the professional and 
business men who are among the Negroes arrested. These are, 
with very rare exceptions, peaceable, law-abiding citizens. The 
criminal Negroes come from a very different group altogether. 

The most numerous and serious crimes committed by 
Negroes are stealing, fighting and disorderly conduct, which 
are characteristic of those of low intelligence and of low 
economic status. Those who steal, do so largely because they 
want things and have not the ability or the opportunity to 
satisfy these wants by honest labor. Many are honest, but 
being shut out by the lack of opportunity or efficiency, they 
acquire habits of dishonesty and disinclination to work. Those 
who keep "speak easies" do so for the money they get, which 
in many cases they are unable to earn. They frequently have 
the protection and active aid of the political boss, who is gen- 
erally a white man. Fighting is everywhere the unintelligent 
man's way of settling a dispute and is resorted to quite fre- 
quently by the Negro who has not yet learned the lesson 
of self-control or the value of arbitration. 



A Study In Economic History 159 

The sudden congregating of many Negroes in the large 
cities like Pittsburg and Philadelphia, where they cannot be 
easily detected and where they can frequently secure protec- 
tion from the police, tends also to the increase of crime 
among them. In the large cities opportunities for crime are 
often many times greater than in the small towns and rural 
districts from which most of the Negroes come, while lack of 
home, church and other social restraints, doubtless cause 
some to fall into crime who might have lived normal, self- 
respecting lives had they remained in the smaller, simpler en- 
vironments. 

POVERTY AMONG NEGROES. 



There are but few property holders among Negroes and 
the amount of property owned is small in comparison with 
the total valuation of property in the state. Judged from 
the standard of luxury, 90 per cent, of the Negroes would be 
in a condition of poverty; but if the standard be lowered to 
the necessities for the maintenance of a normal standard of 
living — allowing just enough to prevent physical deterioration, 
because of the lack of good food and sufficient clothing and 
other things absolutely necessary for economic efficiency — 
fully forty per cent, of the Negroes would be classed as poor. 
According to Prof. DuBois' study of Philadelphia, 8.9 per 
cent, of the persons of the Seventh Ward were in the class of 
the "very poor;" 9.6 per cent, were "poor" and 47.8 per cent", 
were "fair." 

Among the poor, women are the chief workers, because 
there is more steady demand, and a smaller supply of house- 



160 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

hold workers, washer-women, cleaners, etc., than there is 
of the kind of unskilled labor generally done by the men. 
Moreover, women who are employed chiefly within doors, 
work in bad weather as well as in good, while men work 
largely out of doors and must be "laid off" in unfavorable 
weather. As has been seen the Negro men are concentrated 
in the occupations which pay the least. They are almost en- 
tirely shut out of the skilled trades and the higher branches 
of labor. A cessation of labor for two weeks or a month 
often means that outside charity must help or that crime must 
be resorted to, in order to make up the deficit, or the family 
sinks into almost hopeless poverty. 

Then there is the other economic handicap ; poverty 
causes its own perpetuation. The Negroes were slaves and 
as such, owned but little, and had no large experience in self- 
direction or in independent initiative. When they were freed, 
they were left poor. Like the poor everywhere, they have 
to pay higher prices than the well-to-do pay for what they 
get. It is no common thing for Negroes to pay $2 and 
$2.50 per week for an unclean, poorly lighted, poorly ven- 
tilated and otherwise unsanitary room and $3 to $3.50 per 
week for two rooms of this same description. In such cases 
the annual rental is from 20 to 40 per cent, of the assessed 
value of the property. In Philadelphia, for instance, among 
the many examples of the excessive rents paid by the poor, 
is a house in a narrow twelve foot alley in which the better 
circumstanced people put their garbage, which is assessed 
at $1,000. It is a dilapidated brick building, with no modern 
conveniences and has six rooms. This house is rented to 
from three to six families and brings as high as $32 per 
month, a yearly rental of $384. It is occupied by poor 
Negroes who seek out a living by unskilled labor and domestic 



A Study In Economic History 161 



service. Every three years, they pay more than the assessed 
value of the house. The rent which the poor pay seldom 
decreases. As their number increases, their rent goes up. 
x\s these old buildings are torn down for newer ones for 
business purposes, the demand for the remaining shacks is 
greater and the rent is raised — and rent must be paid. 

Next to rent, comes the price of food and fuel. In pro- 
portion to what they get, the poor pay enormously high prices 
for these necessities, and are thus kept poor. They buy their 
coal in most cases by the bucket, and they pay one hundred 
per cent, more than the better circumstanced person who 
buys by the ton. They buy five cents worth of flour or meat ; 
three cents worth of sugar ; they take their lamps to the shop 
and have them filled for a few pennies at the time, but paying 
an exorbitant price for the same. Not only do they pay 
proportionately high prices for what they purchase, but they 
are ignorant of how to use to the best advantage what they 
get. When they are temporarily prosperous, they are apt to 
be unduly extravagant, to waste their money on unnecessary 
and often unwholesome luxuries, only thenceforth to plunge 
themselves into deeper poverty. This often happens to those 
who buy furniture, clothes or pictures on the installment 
plan, always paying very high rates for what they receive. 
Thus with the Negro poor, as with the poor in general, 
poverty tends to perpetuate itself. 

Sickness is another fruitful cause of poverty. But it 
is also often a result as well as a cause of poverty. Twenty- 
four and five- tenths per cent, of the applicants to the charity 
organization above referred to, gave sickness as the imme- 
diate cause of their having to ask for relief Professor Du- 
Bois' family budgets show that the poorest people pay the 
highest doctor's bill in proportion to their income. He gives 

11 



162 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

a family whose yearly expenditure was $121.50 and whose 
bill for sickness in proportion was $10 or 8 per cent, of the 
entire income; a family of two spent $206 for all purposes, 
$15 of which was for sickness; a family of four spent $338 
and $40 for sickness; another family of four spent $520, but 
only $10 for sickness; a family of seven spent $683 of which 
$50 was for sickness and "one of the best families" consisting 
of five persons, spent only $5 for sickness. A conservative 
estimate places the number of Negroes who are sick during 
the year at 20,000 in Philadelphia, or about one-fourth of the 
entire population. 

Not only does sickness mean the paying of doctor's bill, 
but also the loss of time from work and consequently o^ 
wages. An attempt has been made to estimate the Negroes' 
economic loss on account of sickness, using for the purpose 
the records of the University and the Frederick Douglass 
Hospital. From January to March 30, 1906, there were 85 
Negro patients in the University Hospital who remained from 
2 days, the shortest, to 64 the longest. The total length of 
confinement was 1,817 days, or about 21 days for each pa- 
tient. There were thirty males and thirty-five females — 
persons whose average weekly wages was about $4.50 for 
women and about $9 for men, which means about $18.24 P er 
person for the time lost. 

In the Frederick Douglass Hospital (conducted by Ne- 
groes) the record for a longer time was taken and the average 
of confinement was longer. 

Occupation, days confined and wages of patients in the 
Frederick Douglass Hospital, Philadelphia : 

Females : 



Occupation 


No. 


Days 


Weekly 


Total 




patients 


confined 


wages 


wage6 


Nurse 


3 


IO4 


$4.50 


$67.00 


Domestic 


4i 


1112 


4-50 


779-33 


Maid 


5 


135 


4.OO 


77-15 


Housekeeper 


11 


315 


3.OO 


13500. 



A Study In Economic History 



163 



Occupation 


No. patients 


Days 


Weekly 


Total 




confined 


wages 


wages 


Chiropodist 


I 


39 


7.00 


39.00 


Cook 


3 


142 


5.00 


101.45 


Laborer 


i 


4i 


6.00 


35-J4 


Laundress 


2 


46 


5.00 


32.85 


Matron 


I 


14 


5.00 


10.00 


Singer 


I 


18 


7.00 


18.00 


Waitress 


2 


30 


3-5o 


15.00 


Atd. school 


5 


103 






Not given 


2 


56 


3.00 


24.00 



Total 



78 



2255 



$134.22 



Males 



Occupation 


No. 


patients 


Days 


Weekly 


Total 








confined 


wages 


wages 


Laborer 




24 


661 


9.00 


$850.50 


Caterer 




.2 


29 


10.00 


41.00 


Waiter 




6 


129 


10.00 


184.30 


Cook 




2 


36 


10.00 


51.40 


Steward 




2 


99 


12.00 


169.68 


Porter 




6 


192 


10.00 


I74-30 


Coachman 




2 


72 


10.00 


102.90 


Elevator opr. 




7 


9.00 


9.00 


Newsboy 






7 


5.00 


5.00 


Marble dresser 




7 


12.00 


12.00 


Janitor 






14 


10.00 


20.00 


Barber 






14 


10.00 


20.00 


School 




1 


22 






Dentist 






11 


15.00 


23-5.5 


Not given 


males 
patients 


52 
130 


43 
1343 
3598 


6.00 


36.00 


Total 


$1800.13 


Total 


$3144-35 



164 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

According to this table, of the 130 persons confined in 
the hospital, 124 are workers. There were 78 females and 
52 males. The total confinement of females was 2,255 days, 
of males 1,343 days. Calculating the wages according to cur- 
rent rates, the total loss in wages was $1,344.22 for females 
and $1,800.13 for males, a total of $3,144.35 and an average of 
$24.19 per person. 

None of the cases reported in the hospitals was a con- 
sumptive who loses more time than the average sick person. 
On account of the prevalence of tuberculosis among the 
Negroes, it is safe to say that $500,000 is a low estimate of 
the loss of annual wages of Philadelphia Negroes on account 
of sickness and this tends to keep them poor. 

The average age at death of whites of fifteen years or 
over was 53.4 years and of colored for the same time was 
44.1, a difference of 9.3 years. This latter record is of much" 
significance, as showing the length of possible economic ac- 
tivity of the races. 

The census gave no complete record for Pennsylvania, 
the state as such not being in the registration area. But our 
calculations may not be far wrong if the average longevity 
of the Negro for the country is applied to the state. It is 
clear then, that if the average loss of the Negroes per person 
is 9.3 years and if the economic value of each year is, say 
$roo, the average economic loss of each Negro is $930. If 
2,000 Negroes die in a year in Pennsylvania, the annual 
economic loss is $1,860,000, which is equal to the annual in- 
terest at 5 per cent, on $37,200,000. 

Notwithstanding the large amount of poverty among 
Negroes, they are by no means the chief contributors to 
the pauper class of the community. Long .experience in 
stinting and in hereditary poverty, has taught the race "how 



A Study In Economic History 165 



to get along" on a little, and though this is too often inju- 
rious both to themselves and to the society which makes it 
necessary, it is the resort of the vast majority of the Negro 
poor. Besides, there are also numerous benefit societies and 
fraternal organizations, churches, clubs and friends who as- 
sist their needy fellows when necessity arises. Hence, as 
compared with the foreign population, for instance, the Ne- 
groes show but a small amount of pauperism in the country 
at large and in the state of Pennsylvania. 

According to the report of the United States Census on 
"Paupers in Almshouses" on December 31, 1903, there were 
6,910 colored paupers, who comprised 12. 1 per cent, of the 
81,764 paupers of the entire country. In Pennsylvania there 
were 361 colored paupers out of a total of 8,693 or 3-99 P er 
cent. There were 4,089 foreign born paupers, or 45.16 per 
cent. There were 41.6 -foreign white paupers in the Pennsyl- 
vania almshouses to every 10,000 white foreigners; while 
there were 22.5 colored paupers to every 10,000 of the colored 
population of the state. During 1904, there were 9,738 
paupers admitted to almshouses in Pennsylvania of whom 
583 were colored, 4,225 foreign whites; 4,877 native whites, 
53 of unknown nativity. 

During the same year, 8,550 paupers were discharged 
from almshouses, of whom 515 were colored, and Jan- 
uary 1, 1905, there were present in Pennsylvania alms- 
houses, 9,513 white and 429 colored paupers, a total of 9942 
paupers. As compared with conditions before the Civil War, 
there is much evidence that the proportion of pauperism 
among Negroes has decreased. 



166 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



INTER-RACIAL CONTACT AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



The earliest relations of Negroes and whites in this state 
were as slaves and masters. Black servants were a distinct 
group from whites from the beginning, and public sentiment 
and law both tend to emphasize this separation. In 1700, 
laws were brought before the General Assembly looking 
toward separate criminal proceedings for the two races. 

Negroes early awakened suspicion and were deprived 
of the privilege of carrying fire-arms, of congregating and 
of free movement on the Sabbath days. As early as 17 14, a 
group of Quakers, who as a class, were always the best 
friends of the Negroes, passed a resolution to give the 
Negroes a burial place separate from the whites. Indeed, 
all through the period of their long and courageous activity 
on behalf of the Negroes, the Quakers always encouraged in- 
dependent action among them, believing that such action, 
though separate from the whites, gave Negroes self-confi- 
dence and opportunity. Hence, they aided them in establish- 
ing separate places of worship, separ?te schools, separate 
beneficial societies, separate burying grounds, etc. 

Negroes are almost entirely separate from whites in the 
church. They have been so for a century. The first separate 
Negro church was organized in Philadelphia in the eigh- 
teenth century, because the white Christians would not per- 
mit their black brethren to sit on the same floor with them, 
or to kneel at the same altar. Negroes had to sit in the 
gallery, or in some part of the church set apart for them, 
and were separated even at the communion altar. They 
naturally rebelled against this as being un-Christian and thus 
began separate Negro churches. 



A Study In Economic History 167 

It is quite significant that perhaps there is no part of 
our social life where the races are so distinct as they are in 
the church, which in theory, at least, is the strongest advo- 
cate for fellowship and brotherhood. To-day the great mass 
of Negroes never enter a church where whites worship. Two- 
thirds of the Negro church members are Methodists and Bap- 
tists and have their own conferences and conventions, bishops 
and executive general officers, as well as their own pastors. 
They are therefore, outside of the influence of the whites. 
Only a few Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbyterians, and one 
group of Methodists have white supervision. The separation 
has done much to develop leadership among Negroes ; it 
has also robbed both the Negro and the white church of a 
great deal of sympathy for one another, and consequent 
spiritual development. 

Not only are the clergy of the common Christ in but 
little touch with one another but still less, the laity, so far 
as church affairs are concerned. The Episcopalian Church 
has an association which is supposed to bring together Ne- 
groes and whites, but so far as the local influence is con- 
cerned, it is but small. A few Negroes attend the churches 
of the whites, but the number is decreasing. Where they 
attend in large numbers, they are often advised to withdraw 
and form a separate church ; where there are large numbers 
of children in the Sunday School, they are in separate classes 
or a separate school is formed. In Philadelphia several 
hundred Negroes are connected with one of the largest Epis- 
copal Churches, as members of the church and pupils in 
the Sabbath School. In the church report of 1906, however, 
a separate Negro school building was recommended. Very 
few of the churches have white pastors. The Negroes pre- 
fer to have ministers of their own race and in no case does 



168 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



the white clergyman minister to a large Negro congrega- 
tion. 

Negro Methodist clergymen are further removed from the 
white clergy except in one branch. In the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, there is a separate conference, but the pre- 
siding bishop is white, and most of the general officers are 
also white. The annual conference is a part of the general 
conference which is composed of both whites and Negroes. 
The Baptists were, up to but a few years ago, members of the 
Baptist Association, which makes no distinction in color. But 
with the great increase of Negro Baptists, they have estab- 
lished separate bodies of their own. There is now a colored 
Baptist Association in Pennsylvania which is not associated 
with white Baptists. Both the Methodists and Baptists main- 
tain in the larger places, Pittsburg and Philadelphia, separate 
ministers' meetings for the discussion of local topics. 

The Episcopal churches are organized in the main, along 
racial lines, yet they are not supervised by Negroes. Some 
of the vestrymen in Episcopal churches are white and some 
Negro churches have White pastors. The church convoca- 
tions include Negroes as well as whites. In the publication 
of the minutes of the General Assembly, the Negro ministers 
and churches are not named according to color. There is, how- 
ever, among the Negro clergy of the state almost entirely 
unanimity with regard to the advisability of appointing sep- 
arate Negro bishops for Negro dioceses in the South. In 
the Presbyterian Church, the Negroes as a rule, are separated 
from the whites in individual churches. The clergymen, how- 
ever, are members of the same Presbyteries and Synods 
without distinction of color. Unlike the Episcopalians, the 
Presbyterian clergy opposed separate Presbyteries when the 
General Assembly several years ago sent the suggestion down 



A Study In Economic History 169 

to the various Presbyteries to be voted upon. In the Catholic 
Churches there are no Negro clergymen in this state. The 
ministers of the Congregational Churches are all Negroes. 

The contact of the races is closer in the schools than in 
the churches. While a large percentage of the colored 
children are segregated in the public schools, they are largely 
taught by the white teachers and go to schools attended by 
Negroes and whites alike. In many of the high schools and 
colleges of the state, the races go side by side and there the 
Negro boys and girls have the opportunity to compare them- 
selves with their fairer schoolmates. In the schools, how- 
ever, there have been two forces at work tending toward 
separation. On the one hand, there is the positive desire of 
a larger number of Negroes chiefly immigrants from the 
South, for separate schools, such as they have been ac- 
customed to in that section. More often this demand is 
brought forth more forcibly because of the desire to have 
Negro teachers. Of late years this spirit has had considerable 
growth because of the increase of race prejudice in the 
country causing many Negroes to doubt whether white 
teachers can efficiently teach their children. On the other 
hand there is the increasing unwillingness on the part of the 
white parents to have their children go to the same school 
with Negroes. This has increased almost in proportion to 
the growth of population. It is also seen in the attitude of 
the pupils. One very rarely sees Negro and white girls play- 
ing together at school, or coming together in the same group 
from school. Though they may have the same recess, and 
may be engaged in the same kind of play, they are generally 
separated of their own accord. I am informed that there 
are but few friendships between the Negro and the white 



170 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



children in the schools as compared with former times. The 
awakening of the Negro's racial self-consciousness also keeps 
Negroes from forcing themselves upon whites, even among 
children, where there is the slightest hint that they are not 
wanted. 

Equality in the privileges of common comforts and com- 
mon carriers was at one time denied Negroes throughout the 
State. Indeed as late as 1865, Negroes were not permitted to 
ride in the street cars of Philadelphia and were often assault- 
ed for attempting to board cars. A pamphlet entitled "Why 
Colored People are Excluded from Street Cars" published in 
1866 gives a full account of these outrages. On one occa- 
sion a Negro was ejected by a policeman ; the matter was 
complained of to the Mayor (Henry), who is reported to 
have said concerning the ejectment, "it was not by my order, 
but with my knowledge and approbation. I do not wish the 
ladies of my family to ride in cars with colored people." A 
bill to prevent this discrimination was passed by the State 
Senate, but never came to a vote in the House. Courts were 
importuned, but to no avail. A committee appointed to help 
obtain the privileges of the cars for Negroes in 1865, reported 
that it had "attempted to bring suits for assault in seven dif- 
rent cases of ejectment, all of which had been ignored by 
various grand juries." In one case, a white man, a highly re- 
spected physician, who interposed, by remonstrance only, to 
prevent the ejectment of a colored man, was himself ejected. 
He brought action for assault and his complaint was ignored. 
The last case of ejection, was that of a young woman, so light 
of color that she was mistaken for white and invited into a 
car of the Union Line by its conductor. When he found she 
was colored, he ejected her with violence and somewhat to 
her personal injury. This state of affairs did not last long. 
March 22, 1867, a bill was passed designed to give Negroes 
the same rights on railways as whites. Later, a bill to pro- 



A Study In Economic History 171 



vide "Civil Rights for all People Regardless of Race or Col- 
or," was passed by the legislature to prevent any discrimina- 
tion against Negroes in cars, hotels, restaurants, theatres and 
other public places of convenience and amusement. The law, 
however, did not cause discrimination to entirely disappear, 
for it still exists. In the street cars, on the railroads, and in 
some hotels and restaurants, Negroes have the same treat- 
ment as whites, but in most hotels and restaurants they do 
not. In the large cities, there are restaurants and hotels 
where it is known that Negroes will not be served. There 
are also theatres where Negroes have been refused seats in 
parts of the house in which they wished to sit. In this kind 
of discrimination, Pittsburg is worse than Philadelphia. As a 
rule, however, Negroes do not go to the places where they 
are not desired. 

By common consent of both races, it appears that sepa- 
rate barber shops for Negroes and whites exist even in the 
smallest towns, no matter whether the proprietor is white or 
black. Negroes conduct barber shops for whites only, and in 
Pittsburg, a white man conducts a barber shop for Negroes 
only. 

Under the law prohibiting discrimination on account of 
color, the numerous cases which have been brought, have 
usually turned out unsatisfactorily to the Negro complainant. 
There are two possible modes of procedure under the law 
for the offended Negro against the party discriminating. One 
is to sue for damages in the civil court and the other is to have 
the offender arrested for misdemeanor and tried before the 
criminal courts. The act provides for a fine of not less than 
$50, or more than $100. But neither of these have accom- 
plished the purpose of the law. Where the proprietor is bent 
on violating the intent of the law, he is generally able to do so. 
For example, in some restaurants in Philadelphia, the Negro 
is merely ignored and when he complains the proprietor sim- 



172 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

ply begs pardon and declares the matter an oversight. He 
may then be served, but to save his own feelings he seldom 
returns to that restaurant. In Pittsburg, however, the means 
are often different. In the Pittsburg Dairy Lunch Room, 
and other cheap restaurants and lunch places, where people 
of moderate means go the waiters put a tablespoonful of salt 
in the coffee, or a teaspoonful of pepper in the milk sold to a 
Negro ; or charge him 25c for a cup of coffee or a sandwich 
which is usually sold for five cents. In some ice cream parlors 
of the city, the same method is pursued. Still it has been very 
difficult for Negroes to have the proprietors convicted. This 
disposition to discriminate against Negroes has greatly in- 
creased within the last decade. 

In lines of labor, as has been seen, with the exception of 
the miners and hod-carriers, the great mass of Negroes are 
without direct connection with the labor union movement and 
most of them look upon the movement as antagonistic to their 
best interests. But not only in labor union circles, is there 
indifference toward Negro labor, but elsewhere. In very few 
lines of work, do Negroes and whites work together, side by 
side. In a department store all of the salesmen and sales- 
women are white, while the elevator men and caretakers 
may be colored. On a building, the bricklayers are generally 
white, the hod-carriers may be Negroes. Even where there 
is unskilled labor there is generally a separation, one gang 
is composed of Italians, another of Negroes, as was the case 
on the Philadelphia subway and other public works. Often, 
to put a Negro, no matter how efficient he is, to work in a 
group of whites, will mean violent protest or a strike. In as- 
phalt laying and unskilled railroad work, however, it is com- 
mon to see Negroes and whites working together, sometimes 
under a Negro foreman. 

Even in domestic service where there are two or more 
employes, they are generally all white or all Negroes. In ho- 



A Study In Economic History 173 

tels and resturants, waiters and bellmen are all white or all 
black, except where there is a white head waiter, or white 
head bellman or elevator starter, who has been placed as su- 
pervisor over Negroes. In a few private establishments an 
individual Negro here and there has worked himself up into 
a place of responsibility and sometimes authority, where his 
working associates are not of the race to which he belongs. 
In one of the leading architectural establishments in Phila- 
delphia, an exceptionally bright Negro is head draughtsman, 
and in the office of the Vice President of a Steel Company in 
Pittsburg, a Negro is private secretary, but cases like these 
are rare. The great majority of Negroes work among men 
of their own race or they are occupying menial positions. 
They are, as a rule, shut out of competition by reasons of their 
race. Just as the Christian Brotherhood does not seriously 
include Negroes, so the labor fraternity does not include them. 
As a rule, the business of Negroes is done by whites. 
In this the Jews have a very large share. They live among 
the Negroes, often until they can get a start, under worse 
conditions than the Negroes, and sell to them. Negroes buy 
groceries, shoes, clothing of all kinds chiefly from whites. 
They rent chiefly from whites ; they buy their land from 
whites and have white men build their houses. But Negroes 
are gradually getting control of a small proportion of the 
business of their race and indications are that in some lines 
a much larger proportion will be secured by them. 

In philanthropic work for the Negro, many whites are 
directly engaged. In Philadelphia, there are three social set- 
tlements: Starr Centre, on Lombard Street, founded in 
1892 ; The Eighth Ward Settlement, on Locust Street, found- 
ed 1897; an< 3 the Spring Street Mission Settlement, on Spring 
Street, founded in 1906; all of which are supported and 
managed by white people and are doing valuable social work. 
At the largest of these settlements, the Starr Centre, there 



174 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



are many Jews and Italians, as well as Negroes, among the 
beneficiaries. In the Kindergarten at the Eighth Ward So- 
cial Settlement, there are Negro, Italian, Jewish, American 
white and Chinese children. Several other institutions for 
Negroes: day nurseries, Sunday Schools, missions, private 
schools, homes for children are supported entirely by whites. 
In Philadelphia, such helpful institutions as the House of the 
Holy Child, the Wissahickon Boys' Club, are conducted per- 
sonally by whites. But all of these institutions have as their 
purpose the amelioration of conditions among Negroes and 
the contact is of benefactor and beneficiary and not of social 
equals. 

Although the law against inter-marriage in Pennsylva- 
nia was repealed more than a century ago, there has been but 
little marriage between blacks and whites. According to the 
records of the city of Philadelphia, there were during the 
years, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904 only 21 marriages of this kind. 
In 1900 there were six cases of inter-marriage out of 633 
marriages. Three Negro men, aged 26, 35 and 40, respect- 
ively, married three white women, aged 26, 23 and 28, re- 
spectively ; and three white men aged 26, 29 and 34 years, re- 
spectively, married three Negro women, aged 28, 33 years, 
and of unknown age, respectively. There were more inter- 
marriages when there were fewer Negroes than there are 
to-day. Of three white women above mentioned, one was 
born in the South (Virginia), one in Philadelphia, and one 
in Ireland ; the white men were from Philadelphia, New Jer- 
sey and Wales. Professor Du Bois found 38 cases of inter- 
marriages in the Seventh Ward of Philadelphia and esti- 
mated 150 for the city. In Pittsburg the number is estimated 
at 50. In other places in the State where the Negro popula- 
tion is smaller, the actual counting is possible, there is an ag- 
gregate of less than sixty cases. The number of known cases 
is small. The so-called mixed marriages are not approved 



A Study In Economic History 175 

by either the white or Negro group. Negro women especially 
object. When, however, such marriages are consummated in 
spite of Negro public opinion, the couple is almost always os- 
tracized by the Negroes. Perhaps there is no more pathetic 
injustice inflicted by Negroes than the cruel scorn and con- 
tempt which they show toward those who have chosen to 
marry "outside the race." In church, or society, there is very 
little opportunity for such persons and though no law pre- 
vents, there are very few persons who dare disregard this 
public opinion. 

Though there is but little contact between the races at 
the top, there is but little to keep them apart in the lower world. 
In the lowest stratum, the blacks and whites meet in prosti- 
tution and vice. There are in the slums both of Pittsburg and 
Philadelphia, and to an extent, in the smaller cities, frequent 
cases of cohabitation chiefly of white women and Negro 
men, less frequently of white men and Negro women. It is 
impossible to give the number of cases. Now and then, they 
come up in the Police Court, such as the following cases 
copied from the records of the Nineteenth District Police 
Station : 

i. August 6, 1906, for keeping disorderly house 

Rodman Street, John H. , James H , both colored, 

aged 26 and 29 years, given 30 days in prison, and Mary 

, white, born in the United States, aged 39, married (not, 

to either of the men above mentioned), six months in the 

House of Correction, and colored girl, aged 13, sent 

to House of Detention. One of the men was afterward tried 
for rape on the colored girl. 

2. August 20, Mary W. , aged 27, colored, and 

Mary D. , aged 25, white, 12 Pine Street; colored 

woman discharged, white woman given 15 months in House 
of Correction as "idle and disorderly character." 

3. August 26, 3 A. M., at 15th and Pine Streets, Mary 



176 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

B. , aged 25 years, colored, residence 16 Lombard 

Street, and L. P. T. , white, residence 8 N. 42nd 

Street, charged with disorderly conduct ; discharged 7 130 A. 
M. 

4. September 13, Mary S. , colored, aged 36, re- 
sisting officer, and selling liquor without license; Bessie W, 

Mamie , Annie , colored, aged 21, 34, 34, all 

single, inmates, 5 days in House of Correction, and Joseph 

, aged 21, white, inmate, sentenced 10 days in County 

Prison. 

One of the most interesting studies of the American 
Race Problem is that of the Mulatto. This paragraph will 
deal only with one phase of the mulatto question, which may 
throw light on the economic aspects of the problem. There 
are in both Pittsburg and Philadelphia a number of persons 
with Negro blood in them, fair enough to pass as white per- 
sons. These are, as a rule, the sons and daughters of South- 
ern white men and mulatto women, and in some cases of mu- 
latto men and mulatto women. In their homes in another 
part of the country they were known as Negroes. When they 
migrated to the city, where they were entirely unknown and 
where their racial identity would not be easily discovered, 
they found themselves for the first time able to enter free 
economic competition. In both of the large cities there are 
Negroes of this class, who hold responsible positions, which 
they would probably lose were it known that they were not 
members of the white race. Every well informed Negro 
knows of such cases, but there is but little disposition on the 
part of any one to expose them, for nothing but harm can 
come of it and most Negroes take the position that these per- 
sons are more white than colored anyway. 

Now and then some one of these Negroes is discovered 
and his race identity revealed. The result is, that he gen- 
erally loses his position and is often therafter at an economic 



A Study In Economic History 111 



disadvantage. Occasionally the conscience of these persons 
force them to reveal their race. It may be a dark colored 
mother, or wife or child, because of whom one fears to in- 
vite his white friends to visit his home, or it may be some 
other fear. But often the conscience of a Negro who is 
"passing for white" troubles him and he reveals his identity. 
Mr. Ray Stannard Baker mentions one such Philadelphia 
case, in his book, "Following the Color Line." 

The Negro as a Negro is the victim of race prejudice. 
But we cannot take the time to add to the evidence of the 
existence of prejudice, but rather to point out some of the 
consequences. Race prejudice, wherever it manifests itself 
in any strong form, tends to lower the economic efficiency of 
the community. In Pennsylvania, as in Georgia, the Negroes 
being the weaker element in population, suffer more from 
it than the whites, although the whites suffer some, as does 
the body politic. 

Pennsylvania has had her full quota of race riots. Fre- 
quent reference is made during the early colonial days to "tu- 
multuous gatherings of Negroes." But there is no record dur- 
ing these times for any very serious outbreak among Negroes 
in the State, such for instance, as occurred in New York in 
1712. The riotings in which Negroes have been involved, have 
been chiefly instigated by whites. These riots have had 
largely an economic basis. During the first half of the past 
century, while the free Negro population was increasing quite 
rapidly, it came into sharp competition with the foreign ele- 
ment. Both these groups competed for the unskilled work of 
the community and became natural enemies. The unrest 
among Negroes throughout the country and the organized at- 
tempt on the part of the American Colonization Society to 
discredit them, together with their poverty and the compara- 
tive paucity of their numbers, put them almost at the mercy 
of their assailants. 

12 



178 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

From 1829, until after the Civil War, these riots occur- 
red at frequent intervals. The first of the more important of 
these, was during June and July, 1829, occasioned by a series 
of public addresses given in favor of the cause of abolition 
by a Scotch woman, Mrs. Fannie Wright Dartmont. During 
one of the last of these, in 1871, Octavius V. Catto, a very 
highly respected school teacher, was murdered by those who 
differed from him and the Negro politically. 

Shut out from the society of whites, the Negroes are de- 
veloping their own society, and without doubt the great mass 
of them prefer the society of their own group to the society 
of an outside group. In the cities, one can easily see the so- 
cial divisions of Negroes. Their groupings are chiefly along 
the lines of culture and wealth. One finds a group of well 
educated men, largely in the professions and business, who 
are the recognized leaders of their people in social affairs. 
Then there is a group of skilled artisans, not so well educated 
but often as well off financially as the better schooled group ; 
and next to them, the domestic servant group, the unskilled 
laborers and lowest of all, the casual worker and semi- 
criminal. Between the lowest and highest of these group- 
ings, there is but little social contact. Business and pro- 
fession alone, carry the men of the highest to the men of the 
lowest; the women never meet except as benefactor and bene- 
ficiary in charity. And only of late years has it been possible 
to interest the best class of Negro women in active philan- 
thropic work which took them among the lower element, be- 
cause they feared they might be considered by the outside 
white world as members of the group they went to help. 
Still, these groups shade almost imperceptibly into one another. 

Perhaps there is no better illustration of the differenti- 
ation which has taken place in Negro society, than the posi- 
tion of the coachman's ball, of Philadelphia. Thirty-five 
years ago, the chief function among Negroes was this ball. 



A Study In Economic History 179 



To gain admission one had to be especially invited and to 
pay five dollars. To-day, the coachman's ball is public, and 
the admission fee is twenty-five cents, which indicates its de- 
cline in social importance. 

The development of social organizations has gone on very 
rapidly during the past ten years. The chief organizations 
were formerly along the lines of vocations, Caterer's So- 
cial Club, Bellman's Social, Coachman's Social, etc. These 
still exist, but have less prominence than formerly. The 
larger clubs are along the line of higher thought. In Pitts- 
burg, the Loendi Club is composed of men of different occu- 
pations. It is established as a center of friendly intercourse 
among men of some intellectual aspiration. The club owns 
a house costing $15,000. In Philadelphia, the Citizen's Club 
is a social political club which has recently bought property at 
$16,500. There are in Philadelphia more than fifty social 
clubs. Some of these are both social and beneficial. The chief 
ones of those and those having their own club rooms are the 
Citizen's Club, Hotel Brotherhood, Corinthian Club, Bell- 
man's Club, Waiters' Club. There are also several literary 
and musical associations. Of these, the principal ones are 
the Philadelphia Concert Orchestra, consisting of forty-five 
pieces; the Mandolin Club; the Treble Clef Club; St. Peter 
Clavier's Orchestra; Hobb's Band and Wilmore's Band. The 
Philadelphia Concert Orchestra is the largest of these, and 
gives six concerts per season, always to large audiences. The 
chief literary association is the American Negro Historical 
Society, which has a large and valuable collection of books, 
pamphlets, papers, pictures, manuscripts and other records of 
the history of the Negro race. Other literary societies are 
the Aurora Reading Circle of Pittsburg, composed chiefly 
of ladies; the Phillis Wheatley Literary; the Paul Lawrence 
Dunbar and the J. C. Price Literary Societies of Philadel- 
phia. There are several private circles for the study of lit- 
erature and for the study of modern languages. 



180 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

The Negroes have also developed something of a litera- 
ture of their own. As early as 1808, a Pennsylvania Negro 
published a pamphlet. Between that time and the Civil War 
many pamphlets were published by men and women of the 
race. The most ambitious piece of work done before the 
Emancipation, was that of Rector William Douglass, entitled, 
"The Annals of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church," published in 
1862. There have been about fifty books and pamphlets pub- 
lished by Negroes of the State, the most important of which 
have been poems by Mrs. F. E. W. Harper and James E. Mc- 
Girt, the historical and theological works of Bishop B. T. Tan- 
ner and Bishop Levi J. Coppin. 

The Negro race has been looked upon as objects of char- 
ity largely since the early settlement of Pennsylvania, but dur- 
ing this time the more fortunate have always assisted the less 
fortunate. In recent years there has been considerable devel- 
opment in charitable efforts. The Home for the Aged and In- 
firm Colored People, which was founded in 1864 largely 
through the beneficence of Stephen Smith, a Negro lumber 
merchant and minister, now has property worth a quarter of 
a million dollars. More than a score of Negroes have con- 
tributed to this work. The Board of Managers are both whites 
and Negroes. William Still, a Negro coal dealer, was once its 
president. The institution now accommodates one hundred 
and forty inmates, and is one of the largest of its kind in the 
country. All of its officers and employees are Negroes. In 
Philadelphia is the Priscilla Home for Aged Colored Men and 
Women, which was started in 1897 by women connected with 
the Zion Baptist Church. This institution is small yet and 
without any endowment. In Pittsburg is the Home for Aged 
and Infirm Colored Women, which was started by Negro wom- 
en in 1880; in 1890, a home was built which, with furnishings, 
cost $52,900. It has twenty-eight rooms, including six bathj 
rooms and a large hospital room. The Board of Managers, as 



A Study In Economic History 181 



well as the salaried officials and employees are Negroes. In 
1907, it received aid from the Pennsylvania Legislature. At 
Ruffsdale, an "Aged Minister's and Laymen's Home" was 
founded in 1902, principally through the efforts of Rev. R. C. 
Fox, a Baptist minister in Pittsburg. This is supported chiefly 
by the Baptists of Central and Western Pennsylvania. The 
Pennsylvania Grand Lodge of Masons have also purchased 
land for the erection of a home to be located near Harrisburg. 
for the aged of their race. 

Next to the aged and infirm, come several institutions for 
young women, many of whom immigrate from the South to 
the State and are often without any family ties in the places to 
which they have come. The Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation, a small institution, was established in 1902 in Philadel- 
phia. The same year the Industrial School for Colored Girls 
was begun in Pittsburg. Like the Y. W. C. A., it still rents its 
house and is able to reach only a few, accommodating with 
room and board only eight or ten at the time but keeping in 
touch with a larger number who work at domestic service. 
The Association for the Protection of Colored Women was es- 
tablished in 1905, in Philadelphia. It furnishes a home for 
working women, having classes in domestic art, a working 
women's club, and an officer at the docks to meet the young 
women who come in from the South on the boats. This asso- 
ciation is now buying its new home. There is a chain of these 
associations; one in Norfolk, one in Washington, one in New 
York, one in Boston, and one in Philadelphia, which is the na- 
tional headquarters. 

In Philadelphia, the Woman's Union Day Nursery, 707 
South Nineteenth Street, is supported by colored women who 
are purchasing a house. The nursery has about thirty-five 
children a day. In Pittsburg a movement is now on foot 
among Negroes for a day nursery for Negro children, since 
no Negro children are admitted into the existing day nur- 



182 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



series. The Federation of Colored Women's Clubs of the 
State also is making an effort to establish an Orphan Home 
for Negro Girls. The above institutions are the most impor- 
tant efforts of the Negroes to assist one another. 

■ CONCLUSIONS. 



It was not my intention at first to write any word of per- 
sonal conclusion; but merely to describe the economic condi- 
tion of Negroes in this State. But because the Negro has been 
looked upon so long as a "problem," and is to-day largely 
treated as such, it seems well to append a few practical con- 
clusions. For after all, one who has taken special pains to 
study a situation, ought to be able to present some conclusions 
at least interesting, and not entirely without value. 

A survey of the history of the Negro is a most fruitful 
study, in that it shows the various changes in the problem of 
the Negro and the difference in the attitudes of the various 
people or groups of people approaching the problem at differ- 
ent times. Only after one has obtained knowledge of the his- 
tory, is he fully competent to deal with present problems, and 
then he is less certain than ever that any of the ordinary prob- 
lems of life are particularly Negro problems. 

There is always great difficulty in discussing any social 
problem, and especially a race problem. The whole system of 
education of every race is generally such as to inspire its chil- 
dren with belief in its superiority. The Greeks divided the 
world into Greeks and barbarians ; the Romans into Romans 
and plebians; the Hebrews into Israelites — God's chosen peo- 
ple — and gentiles. Ask a German boy what is the greatest na- 
tion, and he says Germany, and the American boy, America. 



A Study hi Economic History 183 

Of course all cannot be absolutely correct. But each is correct 
from his own standpoint, for the superiority of his race has al- 
ways been impressed upon him. 

Trained to believe one thing, it is very difficult for men to 
be fair when they deal with racial and national differences. 
This is especially difficult in the case of the judgments of a 
stronger people with regard to a weaker. 

In dealing with the Negro it is difficult for the community 
as a whole to do the race justice. The old instinct in all of us 
which prompts us to magnify the evil and minimize the good 
of a group, different from ours, affects the Negro in all walks 
of life. White men do not associate with the best Negroes; 
they rarely enter their homes ; they are excluded from their 
social circles ; they cannot become members of their secret so- 
cieties ; they do not become members of their churches ; they 
are seldom business partners and they cannot know the inside 
life of the higher group of Negroes. On the other hand, they 
are often benefactors of the poorer Negroes ; they meet the 
criminal Negro in the court, the pauper at the poorhouse ; they 
have the servant in their kitchen, and they read the newspapers 
in which are sensational reports of Negro crimes, written by 
reporters, most of them who never saw the inside of the homes 
of the well-to-do Negro. 

It is not an exaggeration to state that the community as 
a whole, is ignorant of the real life of Negroes. It is a very 
rare thing to find a white man who rightly interprets the facts 
which have come to him regarding Negro life. It is difficult 
for trained investigators to secure accurate information, espe- 
cially, if these investigators be white. Time was when a Ne- 
gro would, for the mere asking, or in order to secure sym- 
pathy, reveal his life to the Northern white man ; but that time 
has passed in Pennsylvania at least, and they are few and for- 
tunate indeed to whom the Negro, intelligent or ignorant, will 
reveal his soul. 



184 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Yet, in spite of this difficulty in securing reliable informa- 
tion, and the greater difficulty in interpreting the same, it is 
quite common to find men and women with decided views as 
to the Negro's capacity, his rights, his limitations, his suffrage 
and all questions bearing on the race. The basis of their con- 
clusions is often some isolated incident. One man believes Ne- 
groes all ought to be chiefly domestics, because he has a good 
Negro domestic; another says Negro domestics are degenerat- 
ing, because he has one or two incompetent servants. An- 
other says Negroes are corrupting politics because he has 
bought some few Negro votes, or knows some white men who 
have done so. Another says the Negroes are mentally deficient, 
because he has happened to come across two or three feeble- 
minded Negro children. A very interesting case was brought 
to the writer's attention by a highly honored citizen of Phila- 
delphia. A Negro boy who had been very backward in his 
studies, was brought to his attention. He had the boy ex- 
amined by one of the leading psychological specialists in the 
country. This eminent gentleman said that the deficiency was 
entirely racial. Not being satisfied, my friend sent the boy to 
another special school presided over by another specialist. The 
latter said that the boy's mind was entirely normal ; but that 
he was kept backward because of poor nutrition. Better food 
was given, and now the boy is all right. The case was not 
racial at all. 

So common is this error among intelligent and honorable 
white persons, that it is the usual thing to hear one Negro say 
to another, who is going to work with some influential white 
person : "Be careful, for the whole race depends upon you. 
Whatever you do, if it be wrong, he (i. e., the white employer) 
will think we all do," or, "if you do well, you will make friends 
for the race." One of the most cultured Negro ministers of 
Philadelphia speaking to an intelligent congregation recently, 
with regard to the Negro servant class, made his plea as fol- 



A Study In Economic History 185 



lows: "You all ought" to be interested in them for every one 
of them is a missionary to the white people. The whites will 
not judge the race by you, or by me; they do not know our 
homes, our business, or our society; but they will judge by 
these servants." Continuing, he said: "You may look down 
upon them, but in a way, they have more weight in in- 
fluencing the country than you and I have, and for that rea- 
son, if no other, we must help them. Our people are peculiar. 
We are judged by our lower class, while others are judged by 
their upper class." 

Many confuse the problem of the N«^ro with problems 
of ignorance, or crime, inefficiency and other pathological con- 
ditions. This arises from a lack of careful analysis of every as- 
pect of the so-called problem. The Negro problem in Penn- 
sylvania certainly is not a problem of ignorance ; for ignorance 
as indicated by illiteracy is neither peculiar to the Negroes or 
common to them, or characteristic of them. In Pennsylvania, 
there were in 1900, 191,706 illiterate persons over 10 years of 
age, of whom only 19,532 were Negroes, a small proportion of 
the whole. Thus illiteracy, representing ignorance, is not pe- 
culiar to the Negroes. Nor is illiteracy common to them, for 
there were 109,403 literate Negroes and only 19,532 illiterate 
Negroes, or nearly six times as many literate as illiterate over 
10 years of age in the State. Nor is the Negro race more il- 
literate than other groups, for it has been shown that the il- 
literacy of the foreign group in Pennsylvania is much larger 
than that of the Negro group in this State. 

The preceding discussion has shown also that the Negro 
problem is not one of crime. In Pennsylvania there were 2215 
whites and 606 Negroes in the penitentiaries on December 31. 
1908, and in Philadelphia the same year nine whites were ar- 
rested to one Negro. Although there is very much of a prob- 
lem of crime among Negroes, there certainly is no reason to 
think that the "Negro Problem" is a problem of crime. Nor 



186 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



is it a problem of inefficiency. There are no accurate statistics 
of inefficiency, but the statistics of pauperism may be used to 
show certain tendencies as regards inefficiency ; for pauperism 
represents the lowest industrial efficiency. In January, 1905 
there were 85,290 paupers in the almshouse, of whom 77,855 
were white and 7435 colored. In the State there were 9942 
paupers in all almshouses, of whom 9513 were white and 429 
were colored. In Pennsylvania there were twenty-two white 
paupers to one Negro pauper. If pauperism indicates any 
tendency toward inefficiency, then inefficiency is certainly not 
the "Negro Problem." For inefficiency is neither common to 
all Negroes, or peculiar to them. 

The "Negro Problem" — that condition which is peculiar 
to Negroes, and common to them — is rather found in the atti- 
tude of the white race toward the Negro ; an attitude of a ma- 
jority which seeks to shut out a minority from the enjoyment 
of the whole social and economic life. It is an attitude which 
will not permit a Negro, no matter how efficient, to compete 
in certain lines of work, for example, to become a railway en- 
gineer, or a public high school teacher, or take even the less 
highly esteemed position of motorman or street car conductor. 
It is this attitude, which does not give Negroes a fair chance 
in labor unions and which causes Negroes to be unwelcome as 
members in some Christian churches. A Negro girl wins high 
honors in our High School, wins a scholarship to Cornell Uni- 
versity, graduates with honors and returns to her native city, 
but finds the doors of our High School shut. This is the "Ne- 
gro Problem." This attitude only complicates the general prob- 
lems of crime, of ignorance, of poverty, etc., among Negroes, 
which some mistake for the "Negro Problem." 

Not only is the "Negro Problem," not a problem of inef- 
ficiency but quite to the contrary, the conditions which make 
the problem are most keenly realized by the efficient Negroes 
of the community. The discriminations against Negroes in- 



A Study In Economic History 187 

crease with increasing intelligence, benefit and efficiency, on the 
part of the Negroes, and increased competition. In the eco- 
nomically and intellectually lowest stratum — that of the pauper 
and criminal — there is but little race problem. The white pau- 
per and criminal and the Negro pauper and criminal are found 
in the same institutions and often in close association. In the 
lowest stratum of independent occupation, that of the unskill- 
ed laborer, Negroes and whites are frequently found working 
together. In the higher vocations of skilled service, they are 
rarely found together, notwithstanding the efficiency of the 
Negro. 

But while the Negro problem is not a problem of ineffici- 
ency, poverty or crime, these conditions are exaggerated in the 
Negro race because of the exclusion of the race from the or- 
dinary competition of men ; and there therefore arise very 
serious problems of labor. Crime, poverty and so forth which 
are different from the ordinary problem of the same kind in 
that the element of racial antipathy enters to complicate them. 
The most serious of these problems is that of industrial im- 
provement. This relates both to the opening of the new ave- 
nues of labor, and the improvement in those already opened. 
For a century, indeed, ever since the Negro became a free 
man, there has been complaint about his low efficiency. This 
complaint has been more at some times than at others. A 
careful study of the circumstances accompanying more or less 
complaints will convince one that the complaints as to the Ne- 
groes' low efficiency are contemporaneous with increased 
prejudice against the race. 

The Negroes' industrial standard cannot be raised from 
without, but must be from within. In the first place there 
must be an open competition. The community must insist 
that all men have a fair chance in order that the best man 
might have greatest success and society thus secure all that is 
its dues. At present, no such open competition exists. Ne- 



188 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



groes who compete only with themselves, cannot but have a low 
standard. This was well illustrated by a Negro bricklayer, 
who in a meeting of members of his trade, was giving reasons 
why he thought that colored men could not do a certain piece 
of work. He said that he would be afraid to have to be re- 
sponsible for a certain number of first-class bricklayers, for it 
would be hard to secure them. "Take myself, for example/' 
he said, "when I came here from Virginia, I was a good brick- 
layer. I could not get work on large jobs or fine ones, I mere- 
ly did small jobs and patchwork for people who could not pay 
for a good job." He concluded, "and gentlemen, I have de- 
generated, I would not take a large first-class job if you would 
give it to me." This may not be the true status of the case in 
all of its bearings but it is true with regard to efficiency in 
many instances. The efficiency of the Negro cannot be raised 
unless Negroes are permitted to enter competition on their 
merits. The theory of Negroes for Negroes only means low 
efficiency always, and society therefore loses in the end. 

Another means by which Negroes will raise their indus- 
trial efficiency will be by the breaking up of their comparative 
solidarity as a serving class. As long as the race occupies 
menial or small paying positions, there is but little incentive to 
a standard of high efficiency; for all of them will be on the 
same social level and able to command about the same amount 
of the social products. So long as the Negroes of ability are 
not permitted to exercise their talents merely on account of 
their color or race, there is no opportunity for the superior 
ones to rise above the inferior, and therefore, no inducement 
to increased efficiency. There must be both social and eco- 
nomical rewards for efficiency, if high efficiency is ever to be 
obtained. And a community has but little right to complain 
of the low efficiency of a struggling group of Negroes, or 
others, when by its custom and its public opinion, it shuts the 
door to high efficiency against them. 



A Study In Economic History 189 



On the other hand, it must not be forgotten by the Ne- 
gro group, that the economic opportunities are seldom ever 
"given" by one group to another as a gratuitous favor. The 
struggle between groups is such that even in a country pro- 
fessing to be a democracy, a sharply differentiated minority 
group is generally at a disadvantage, both politically and eco- 
nomically, as for example, the Jews in Russia, the Japanese 
in California, and the Negroes in the Southern United States. 
And that group is able to rise economically to the extent that 
its rise becomes of economic advantage to the larger group. 
So the Negroes of this State have a large part to play in in- 
creasing their own industrial opportunities. They cannot ex- 
pect those opportunities to be given them except they prepare 
and strive for them as best they can. They can expect but lit- 
tle from the larger group except as they can be of service to 
them. When the Negro uses superior skill, or gives the same 
skill for a smaller return, he becomes an advantage to those 
who engage him and makes an opportunity. This is already 
seen in domestic service and unskilled labor where Negroes 
are most generally employed because they give as good ser- 
vice at a lower rate than whites. Still, while this is apparent- 
ly economic law, it is not moral law, or is it the ideal of the in- 
telligent, social and political leader. 

The problem of the Negro children presents several seri- 
ous aspects. In the first place it has been pointed out that 
many Negro parents, because of certain industrial conditions, 
which make it necessary for both of them to be absent from 
their homes during the day, cannot give the attention to their 
children which they should give. This means that a large por- 
tion of the education of their children comes from the streets ; 
that the discipline of the morning and early afternoon hours 
at school is largely counteracted by the lack of discipline in the 
later afternoon and early evening. In the second place, the 
training given in most of the schools is inadequate. The public 



190 TJie Negro In Pennsylvania 

school course, leads as a rule, to a commercial life; it also 
points to the ideal of brain work chiefly and manual work sec- 
ondarily. The Negro boy or girl who goes through the eighth 
grade, can do nothing well. Very few of them go to the High 
School because by that time they find that they are circum- 
scribed by race prejudice which keeps them from open compe- 
tition, and they do not see that the four years' course in the 
High School would be of any special economic benefit to them. 
It is a well known fact that a Negro girl finishing the eighth 
grade at present, has about as much chance economically, as 
her sister from the High School. It is also a fact that the 
chief opening outside of teaching for the educated Negro girl 
is a clerkship in a Negro business establishment, and that the 
vast majority of these pay no more than the partially edu- 
cated Negro cooks earn. With Negro young men who finish 
High School courses, there is often a larger amount of dis- 
couragement. The reason is, that the Negro boy is not per- 
mitted to enter competition for clerical or other positions with 
his white classmates, though they be no better intellectually or 
economically than he is. He is not even half prepared for any 
other work and he must turn to domestic service, where he is 
often held up by the Negroes as sufficient proof for other boys 
and their parents, that a High School course is useless for Ne- 
groes. 

The Negro child needs much of inspiration but gets but 
little. The average Negro parent does not appreciate the eco- 
nomic value of higher education and is unwilling to make 
sacrifices for it. Those who have finished the ordinary High 
School course, because they are the only ones in their immedi- 
ate group who have done so, frequently think that they should 
have greater recognition than they receive. When they see 
their white schoolmates going into positions of opportunity and 
responsibility, they are apt to become discouraged and pessi- 
mistic. They have not been led to understand some of the eco- 



A Study In Economic History 191 

nomic reasons why a father who himself is educated and who 
has business and social connections can possibly give his boy a 
start in life, whereas the Negro who has none of these, must 
make the start himself from the bottom. Therefore, instead of 
being inspired to create, the Negro too often becomes discour- 
aged and embittered. Furthermore, the schools give the Ne- 
gro children very little which is calculated to make them con- 
tented with being physically Negroes. Unfortunately, as a 
noted historian wrote to a Negro teacher, "Historians have not 
searched history with an eye to the deeds of Negroes." Much 
that the Negro child learns about his race is calculated to make 
him ashamed of it. He knows that they were slaves and he 
thinks they were the only race that had been enslaved. In- 
stead of trying to develop what he has, he too often bewails his 
fate. 

The Negro child needs to be taught something useful in 
school. At present the most useful things that Negro children 
are taught, are to be had in reformatory and special schools. 
The need of the Negro boy and girl to know some particular 
thing is also emphasized by the present low economic status of 
the race in the State. As has been seen, more than three-fifths 
of the Negro males are engaged in domestic, personal and un- 
skilled service, in which they earn the lowest wages. This ne- 
cessitates the working of women in order to make up the fam- 
ily income. On this account four times as large a percentage 
of married Negro women work as of married white women in 
Pennsylvania. Ninety per cent, of these women are in domes- 
tic service. The Negroes must be raised out of this condition. 
The men must be elevated into higher grades of labor, into 
trades, into business and so forth. This can only be done by 
helping the Negro boy to some definite training which leads 
to some useful vocation. 

I have not meant the above as a basis for separate schools 
in Pennsylvania. Such would be an unfortunate retrogression. 



192 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

The law of 1881, which made it illegal to discriminate against 
Negroes was a step toward democracy. The schools ought to 
be the training places for democracy. No law should force one 
normal child to one school, and another to another either be- 
cause of race, religion or politics. Whatever may be the justi- 
fication for separate schools in other parts of the country, there 
is not justification here. In the first place, separate schools 
would be an economic burden, and the minority generally suf- 
fer by not having adequate equipment. In the second place, 
separate schools generally put the Negroes at a disadvantage 
in the matter of school supplies and equipment, and often in- 
ferior teachers. The problem of the colored child in the 
schools, is not a problem of legal separation. According to the 
school census of Philadelphia in 1904, there were Negro chil- 
dren between six and thirteen years in every ward in the city 
except the Eleventh and Thirty-first. But there were only four 
Negro children in the Sixth Ward ; twelve in the Sixteenth ; 
fifteen in the Seventeenth; three in the Eighteenth; twenty in 
the Nineteenth, and so on. Considering that these children 
may live miles apart, may be in different grades, it is impracti- 
cable in a large and busy city like Philadelphia to require Ne- 
gro children to go to a special school. In the next place, all 
Negro children are not all alike and do not need the same train- 
ing. It has been shown that Negroes are developing social and 
economic grades. And, although this discussion is for the aver- 
age child and for those below it, it would not apply to all Negrc 
children. The son of the Negro physician who has both eco- 
nomic opportunity and a good home life, does not need all that 
the son of the illiterate Negro laborer needs. The daughter of 
the Negro of three generations of culture does not need the 
same as the daughter of the recent immigrant from a Southern 
cotton field. The boy whose father has succeeded in his busi- 
ness and who will send his boy to college and turn over to his 
son his business, does not need the exact kind of training as 



A Study In Economic History 193 



the boy whose father and mother together do not earn enough 
to keep their son in school past the age of fourteen. The cases 
are very different, and although they all happen to be Negroes, 
they are not the same. For economic reasons, to say nothing 
of constitutional and political reasons, there is no necessity to 
force Negroes into separate schools. What is needed is the 
adaptation of the schools to the needs of the community which 
it serves. In doing this, one of the most important factors is 
the teacher. Negro children suffer largely from the lack of 
teachers, who are both competent and interested in them, and 
who can point them to opportunities and inspire them. This 
does not necessarily mean Negro teachers; yet, other things 
being equal, a Negro teacher is to be preferred as the instruc- 
tor of a Negro child. In fact this seems to be almost a neces- 
sity, if the Negro child is to be guided into a wholesome re- 
spect for himself and be inspired to aspire. But teachers 
should not be selected merely because they are Negroes and 
have finished a normal course, or at the expense of efficiency. 
They should be experienced persons and should be carefully 
selected and their methods and results should be closely watch- 
ed. Moreover, the atmosphere of democracy should always be 
around them. They should not be under the stigma of teach- 
ing in "Negro schools," but if possible they should be made to 
feel as we make our "special school" teachers feel, that to them 
is committed one of the most important problems of our edu- 
cational life, and that success in this field will bring the recog- 
nition it deserves. But the whole matter of teachers is a sub- 
ject for school administration, and not legislation. 

The Negro has been the object of philanthropy in the 
State of Pennsylvania since the very beginning. And although 
much of this philanthropy has been of the most beneficial sort, 
and contributed helpfully toward the advancement of the Ne- 
groes of the State, much of it has been of positive harm. 
When it comes to philanthropy as expressed in schools, in re- 

13 



194 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



ligious instruction, in pleading for the freedom of the slave, 
Pennsylvania is possibly the foremost State of the Union. But 
as relates to the economic side of Negro life, which is most 
fundamental, Pennsylvania has not always done the best by the 
Negro. 

In the colonial days, the slave system by its very nature 
encouraged laziness, as Benjamin Franklin was quick to note. 
When a Negro had served his probation of slavery and was 
given his freedom, Pennsylvania instead of putting him on his 
merit and compelling him to compete for his living, followed 
the example of other colonies in making the master who manu- 
mitted the Negro, forever responsible for him. This was, of 
course, not calculated to raise the economic standard or self- 
confidence of the Negro. In fact, it is doubtful, whether the 
purpose was primarily to help the Negro, or to relieve the Gov- 
ernment. But possibly the greatest instance of misplaced phil- 
anthropy was that of the American Colonization Society, to 
which reference has been made in a previous chapter. This 
could hardly be called philanthropy as far as the Pennsylvania 
Negroes are concerned. 

There are to-day, many philanthropies for Negroes in 
the State; but there are few which aim at creating an atmos- 
phere of democracy for Negroes. There are practically none 
which aim at the Negroes' real economic problem — the man's 
chance among men. The greatest thing which the Negroes 
need to-day is to be allowed to enter as a full-fledged competi- 
tor, to insist that they be men, citizens, with the duties and re- 
sponsibilities of the same. But many philanthropists proceed 
on the theory of an antiquated ethnology that the Negro is dis- 
tinctly different from the white man and must not be treated as 
such. 

"Social equality" is a bugbear which has deprived the Ne- 
groes of many economic opportunities. Within ten years, pub- 
lic opinion has changed greatly. Negroes are denied, in viola- 



A Study In Economic History 195 

tion of the law, many of the common comforts, and public 
opinion has remained silent, largely because the white public 
does not believe in "social equality." But it is not social equal- 
ity which Negroes seek ; it is economic opportunity. Dr. Selig- 
man, of Columbia University, in his treatise on the "Principles 
of Economics," says: "The real equality which is important 
for economic purposes, is threefold ; first, legal equality, or 
the certainty that one man is as good as another before the law 
and that his economic rights will be equally protected ; second- 
ly, equality of opportunity, in the sense that no man is shut 
out by legislation or social prejudice from free access to any 
vocation or employment for which he deems himself fitted ; 
thirdly, such a relative equality at least in the conditions of 
bargaining, as not to put one party to a contract at the virtual 
mercy of the other. Without such a threefold equality, free- 
dom becomes illusory." 

Illustrating the economic disadvantage of certain preju- 
dices and local discriminations, a young Philadelphia Negro 
business man relates the following experiences : "I was in a 
Southern State on a business trip, but had planned to return to 
Philadelphia on a certain day. A few days before I returned, I 
wrote making three engagements. I looked at the schedule 
and found the train would arrive in Philadelphia about 10 A. 
M., so I set my first engagement for 12 o'clock noon ; my other 
two for 2 and 4 o'clock respectively. All engagements were 
important and that at 2 o'clock could not be deferred. All en- 
gagements were with white men on whom for purely business 
reasons, I was anxious to make a good impression. The noon 
engagement was with a man with very wide and influential 
business connections. I purchased a ticket from a small town 
to Atlanta, Ga., thence I expected to secure a ticket to Phila- 
delphia. I had two changes to make, one at Atlanta and one 
at Washington, D. C. I left the small town in which I was, 
early in the morning, reaching Atlanta before ten o'clock, ex- 



196 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

pecting to leave on the 12 o'clock train. When I went to the 
ticket office in Atlanta to get a ticket for Philadelphia I was 
told that I could not ride on the train leaving Atlanta at noon, 
because it carried only Pullman coaches and that it was illegal 
for a Negro to ride in Pullman coaches in the State of Geor- 
gia. I explained and pleaded with the ticket agent but to no 
avail. He became angry and ordered me away under threat 
of arrest. 'You'll have to go on the 2.15 (a slow train), or not 
at all,' he said and that was final. I took the 2.15 train, the 
only one a Negro could take and got to Philadelphia too late 
for any one of my three engagements. Now, what was I to 
do? I do not care especially to sleep or ride with white peo- 
ple. All I want is a chance to compete for business. I lost 
these opportunities, not because of inefficiency but because of 
prejudice. Yet, I am told that I must not complain. Still, if 
the white man excels me, I am told that I am inefficient. 'That 
is my dilemma.' " Another incident is told by a young Negro, 
thus : 

"I was called across the river from Philadelphia to Cam- 
den on business one day about 11 o'clock. After I had attend- 
ed to my business I returned to Philadelphia by the Market 
Street Ferry. It was then 1 o'clock, and living about two 
miles away, I found I could not go home to lunch as my usual 
custom was. I decided, therefore, to stop at the first restaurant 
in my route. I saw one just opposite the ferry which I en- 
tered. I remained there ten or fifteen minutes; men on every 
side of me were served, but I was unnoticed. I appealed to 
the head waiter, who became so violent in his expressions 
against me that several of the men who were eating protested. 
After their protests he consented to serve me. I ordered roast 
beef. When the waiter who brought it to me received it, 
plainly within my sight, he poured cold water over the beef 
and gave me a glass of dish water to drink. When I protested, 
a policeman was called, I was threatened with arrest. I, of 



A Study In Economic History 197 



course, was excited and before I knew it, it was half past one. 
I hurried to my engagement hungry and excited and, I con- 
fess, angry. I got there late but not too late to talk business. 
The transaction involved about $300 cash and a large oppor- 
tunity for further business, but I lost it. I attribute that fact 
almost entirely to my physical and mental condition at the time. 
I did not want to eat with white men, I only wanted to refresh 
myself so as to bring my best physical self to my business." 

These incidents are but examples of hundreds that have 
been brought to the writer's notice. They lead one to ask, 
"How can the community ask the Negro to compete when it 
will not let him eat or sleep ?" It is not social equality but it is 
economic privilege. A public restaurant ought not to discrimi- 
nate against Negroes because such discriminations add to in- 
efficiency. How can a hungry Negro compete with a well-fed 
white man in the downtown district? How can a half angry 
Negro, threatened with unjust arrest, because he wants to eat 
a meal in a decent place, compete with the man who has all his 
powers in complete composure? Shall we ask the Negro to 
spend ten cents and an hour and a half to go home and get his 
lunch, or to ride to a restaurant in the Negro district? If so, 
how can he compete with the white man who saves that time 
and money each day ? Yet this is only a part of what the com- 
munity does and still it complains of Negro inefficiency. There 
is another phase of the matter which the community ought to 
understand better. The Negroes who complain against this 
treatment are generally the best and most ambitious Negroes. 
They do not want favors and they despise conventional char- 
ity. Many whites because they have heard so much talk about 
"social equality" and do not understand these Negroes' eco- 
nomic strivings, think that the well-to-do Negroes desire to eat 
and drink with them and their kind without an invitation. This 
is far from being the case. The complaint which comes from 
Negroes is almost entirely for economic reasons and has but 



198 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



little to do with the purely social. It is not heard by the masses 
of Negroes, merely because the masses are not in as keen com- 
petition as the so-called upper classes. The more intelligent 
Negro wants the best and cleanest place he can get, for it helps 
him to compete in his business. He wants to get to his ap- 
pointments as quickly and in as good condition as the white 
man. That is why he complains when he is discriminated 
against in a hotel, a sleeping car or other public convenience. 

That Negroes are not desiring "social equality" may be 
seen by the fact that Negroes rarely invite whites to their 
tables. Indeed, it is probable that Negroes are invited more 
often than they invite, and they only invite their friends. 
When some very white Negroes "pass for white" they are im- 
mediately ostracised by the Negroes. But the most convinc- 
ing argument against the Negroes being especially anxious for 
"social equality" with whites, in the sense of association with 
whites on terms of intimacy, is seen in the small proportion of 
mixed marriages and race mixture occurring in the State. Al- 
though the law against mixed marriages was repealed over one 
hundred and thirty-five years ago, there is less mixing to-day 
in the free State of Pennsylvania than in the State of Mississ- 
ippi, where Negroes and whites are not permitted to marry. 

Social classes among Negroes are a conspicuous develop- 
ment. Notwithstanding the general complaint among native- 
born Negroes concerning the immigration of Southern Ne- 
groes, it is this very immigration of large numbers of Negroes 
to the cities that has been the basis upon which social classes 
among Negroes are gradually being formed. Were it not for 
these Negroes, the Negro professional group, which is forcing 
its way upward to both social position and comparative wealth, 
could never have been developed ; the Negro business man 
would have had no field ; and the great mass of intelligent Ne- 
groes, with a few exceptions, would have been domestic ser- 
vants, as the Negroes of the North have generally been. Im- 



A Study In Economic History 199 

migration of Negroes is beginning to do for the development 
of, Negroes what the immigration of foreigners did for the 
Germans, Irish, Italians and others. The older groups, with 
more experience, more money and more education, are rising 
upon the newer ones. 

As long as there are very few Negroes in a community, 
there is generally but little prejudice and the Negroes enjoy a 
reasonable degree of security. But at the same time, only a 
few of them rise above the position of a menial. They may be 
respected by the community, but they are respected as good 
servants. Now and then, some exceptionally bright Negro or 
the protege of some philanthropic person is allowed to rise, 
but this is very seldom. When, however, heavy Southern Ne- 
gro immigration sets in, the conditions of security and tran- 
quility are often upset ; the old inhabitants, both black and 
white, complain of the "incoming Negroes from the South" 
and the evils they have brought, and they deplore the changed 
conditions. Yet it is upon these incoming Negroes and these 
alone, that the Negroes begin to rise and to diversify their oc- 
cupations. They increase the competition among the Negroes 
tbemselves and among whites and they therefore, raise them- 
selves in efficiency. And although they increase prejudice on 
the part of their competitors, they lay a foundation on which 
other Negroes can rise in business and professions. 

The two hundred thousand Negroes in the State make it 
possible for the Negroes to differentiate into classes based on 
wealth, culture and character. The differentiation of the Ne- 
gro group will be slower than that of the immigrant white 
group, since the Negro's field of operation, because of public 
opinion, is limited. Public sentiment requires Negroes to work 
among their own, as it does not require the Irishman or Italian. 
If one of the latter succeeds he is looked upon as a citizen 
and not as an Irishman. But it is not so with the Negro. If a 
Negro girl graduates with honors in our High School, wins 



200 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

thereby a scholarship to a leading university, and graduates 
there with honor, she cannot come back to her native city and 
teach in her Alma Mater, as white girls who stood lower than 
she have done. She must be content to teach in the graded 
schools or go South to teach. If a bright young Negro wins a 
Cecil Rhodes' Scholarship, and represents his State at Oxford, 
England, his best friends are at a loss to find for him an op- 
portunity in his native city and State, whereas there are large 
opportunities for white boys with such scholastic honors, in 
the service of the State in which they have striven and shown 
their superiority. 

Crime among Negroes, to-day in proportion to fifty 
years ago, has decreased. That is, it has not increased as 
rapidly as the Negro population in the State. All the evidence 
at hand, however, although meager and hard to interpret, tends 
to show that the Negroes still commit twice as many crimes as 
whites do. But this is better than it was a half century ago. 
There are not facts to show that Negroes are naturally more 
criminal than whites. But facts do seem to show that there is 
close connection between the crimes of Negroes and the lack 
of economic opportunity. Negro criminals are rarely efficient 
or regular workers. It is only by giving Negroes the equal op- 
portunity in all lines of industry that the crimes of Negroes 
will be diminished. Work, regular work, and the incentive 
which the hope of promotion inspires, will do for the decrease 
of crime what preaching, lecturing, and abusing and even pun- 
ishment have not yet accomplished. 

The aim of our nation is the common weal ; is equal op- 
portunity as far as possible. Race, nationality or religion 
should not interfere with American economic progress. The 
greatest need of the Negro is economic freedom, economic jus- 
tice. This is all the best Negroes of this State ask. And it is 
indeed a high platform upon which to stand. It is not a bid 
for charity ; it is not a bid for hostility. It is only to be per- 



A Study In Economic History 201 

mitted to enter American rivalry, to go down if incompetent, 
to die out if weak, to go up if capable. It is the request that 
the same rules by which whites, with all their generations of 
culture, are judged, be the rules applied to the Negro. It is for 
an opportunity to be a part of an industrial democracy that 
Negroes plead ; an opportunity to make the best living possi- 
ble. To give them this is most difficult indeed ; it requires the 
most profound economic foresight and the highest religious 
devotion. It is the common ground of political economy and 
the teaching of Jesus. For indeed, it is easier to "give one's 
body to be burned ;" to give alms to the poor, to speak wisdom 
and write learnedly, than to give simple Pauline charity, which 
is an attitude of mind and not particularly a material gift. 
What the Negroes want most and need most, and what ulti- 
mately is best for our State and nation, is economic charity, 
i. e., economic justice, a state of public opinion that will give 
a fair field to struggling individuals identified with a submerg- 
ed minority. 

Certainly, Pennsylvania which could pass the Abolition 
Act, establish the Abolition Society, the Anti-Slaverv Society, 
various associations for the promotion of religion and reform, 
the foremost of philanthropic States of the Union, so far as 
the Negro is concerned, can give the Negro that simplest of 
all things, the right to earn his bread, and as much of it as he 
is capable of earning for the support of his family and to main- 
tain a respectable place in the community; and will not deny 
him what Professor Seligman says is absolutely necessary for, 
the best economic development of the State itself — that "equal- 
ity of opportunity in the sense that no man is shut out by leg- 
islation or social prejudice from free access to any vocation or 
employment for which he deems himself fitted." 



Appendix 



LAWS OF PENNA., 1810, CH. 870, P, 492-497- 
"AN ACT FOR THE GRADUAL ABOLITION OF SLAV- 
ERY," passed March 1, 1780: 

"When we contemplate our abhorence of that condition, to which 
the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us, 
when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been 
exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many instances have 
been supplied, when even hope and human fortitude have become un- 
equal to the conflict we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful 
sense of the manifold blessings, which we have undeservedly received 
from the hand of that Being, from whom every good and perfect 
gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our 
duty and we rejoice that it is in our power to extend a portion of 
that freedom to others, which hath been extended to us, and release 
from that state of thraldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically 
doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being de- 
livered. It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of man- 
kind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distin- 
guished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to 
know, that all are the work of an Almighty hand. We find, in the 
distribution of the human species, that the most fertile as well as the 
most barren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complexions 
different from ours, and from each other; from whence we may rea- 
sonably, as well as religiously, infer, that He who placed them in 
their various situations, hath extended equally His care and pro- 
tection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His mer- 
cies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that we are en- 
abled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by re- 
moving, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in 
undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed authority of 
the Kings of Great Britain, no effectual, legal relief could be obtained. 
Wearied, by a long course of experience, from those narrow prejudices 
and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with 
kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations; 
and we conceive ourselves at this particular period extraordinarily 
called upon, by the blessings which we have received, to manifest the 
sincerity of our profession, and to give a substantial proof of our 
gratitude. 

203 



204 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



II. And whereas the condition of those persons, who have here- 
tofore been denominated Negro and Mulatto slaves, has been at- 
tended with circumstances, which not only deprived them of the com- 
mon blessings that they were by nature entitled to, but has cast 
them into the deepest affliction, by an unnatural separation and sale 
of husband and wife from each other and from their children, an in- 
jury, the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that 
we were in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons 
so unhappily circumstanced, and who, having no prospect before them 
whereon they may rest their sorrows and their hopes, who have no 
reasonable inducement to render their service to society, which they 
otherwise might, and also in grateful commemoration of our own 
happy deliverance from that state of unconditional submission, to 
which we were doomed by the tyranny of Britain. 

III. Be it enacted, and it is hereby enacted, That all persons as 
well Negroes and Mulattoes as others, who shall be born within this 
State from and after the passing of this act, shall not be deemed and 
considered as servants for life, or slaves; and that all servitude for life, 
or slavery of children, in consequence of the slavery of their mothers, 
in the case of all children born within this State from and after the 
passing of this act as aforesaid, shall be and hereby is, utterly taken 
away, extinguished, and forever abolished. 

IV. Provided always, and be it further enacted, That every Ne- 
gro and Mulatto child, born within this State after the passing of the 
act as aforesaid (who would, in case this act had not been made, 
have been born a servant for years, or life, or a slave) shall be 
deemed, and shall be, by virtue of this act, the servant of such per- 
son, or his or her assigns, who would in such case have been enti- 
tled to the service of such child, until such child shall attain unto the 
age of twenty-eight years, in the manner, and on the conditions, 
whereon servants bound by indenture for four years are or may be 
retained by his or her master or mistress, and to like freedom dues 
and other privileges, as servants bound by indenture for four years 
are or may be entitled, unless the person, to whom the service of 
any such child shall belong, shall abandon his or her claims to the 
same ; in which case the Overseers of the poor of the city, township 
or district, respectively, where such child shall be so abandoned, as 
an apprentice, for a time not exceeding the age herein before limited 
for the service of such children. 

V. And be it further enacted, That every person, who is or shall 
be the owner of any Negro or Mulatto slave or servant for life or till 
the age of thirty-one years, now within this State, or his lawful attor- 
ney, shall, on or before the said first day of November next, deliver 
or cause to be delivered, in writing, to the Clerk of the Peace of the 
county, or to the Clerk of the Court of Record in the City of Phila- 
delphia, in which he or she shall respectively inhabit, the name and 
surname, and occupation or profession of such owner, and the name 
of the county and township, district or ward, wherein he or she 



A Study In Economic History 205 



resideth; and also the name and names of any such slave and slaves, 
and servant and servants for life, or till the age of thirty-one years, 
together with their ages and sexes severally and respectively set 
forth and annexed, by such person owned or statedly employed, and 
then being within this State, in order to ascertain and distinguish 
the slaves and servants for life, and till the age of thirty-one years, 
within this State, who shall be such on the said first day of Novem- 
ber next, from all other persons; which particulars shall, by said Clerk 
of the Sessions and Clerk of the said City Court, be entered in books 
to be provided for that purpose by the said Clerks, and that no 
Negro or Mulatto, now within this State, shall, from and after the said 
first day of November, be deemed a slave or servant for life, or till 
the age of thirty-one years, unless his or her name shall be en- 
tered as aforesaid on such record, except such Negro and Mulatto 
slaves and servants as are hereinafter excepted; the said Clerk to be 
entitled to a fee of two dollars for each slave or servant so entered as 
aforesaid, from the Treasury of the county, to be allowed to him in 
his accounts. 

VI. Provided always, That any person, in whom the ownership 
or rights to the service of any Negro or Mulatto shall be vested at 
the passing of this act, other than such as are herein before excepted, 
his or her heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, and all and 
every one of them, severally, shall be liable to the Overseers of the 
Poor of the city, township or district, to which any such Negro or 
Mulatto shall become chargeable, for such necessary expense, with 
costs of suit thereon, as such Overseers may be put to, through the 
neglect of the owner, master or mistress of such Negro or Mulatto, 
notwithstanding the name and other descriptions of such Negro or 
Mulatto shall not be entered and recorded as aforesaid, unless his or 
her master or owner shall, before such slave or servant attain his or 
her twenty-eighth year, execute and record in the proper county a 
deed or instrument, securing to such slave or servant his or her free- 
dom. 

VII. And be it further enacted, That the offenses and crimes ot 
Negroes and Mulattoes, as well as slaves and servants as freemen, 
shall be inquired of, adjudged, corrected and punished, in like man- 
ner as the offenses and crimes of the other inhabitants of this State, 
are and shall be inquired of, adjudged, corrected and punished, and 
not otherwise, except that a slave shall not be admitted to bear wit- 
ness against a freeman. 

VIII. And be it further enacted. That in all cases, wherein sen- 
tence of death shall be pronounced against a slave, the jury, before 
whom he or she shall be tried, shall appraise and declare the value 
of such slave; and in case such sentence be executed, the Court shall 
make an order on the State Treasurer, payable to the owner, for tne 
same, and for the costs, of prosecution, but in case of remission or 
migration, for the costs only. 



206 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



IX. And be it further enacted, That the reward for taking up 
runaway and absconding Negro and Mulatto slaves and servants, and 
the penalties for enticing away, dealing with or harboring, concealing 
or employing Negro and Mulatto slaves and servants, shall be the 
same, and shall be recovered in like manner, as in case of servants 
bound for four years. 

X. And be it further enacted, That no man or woman of any 
nation or color, except the Negroes and Mulattoes who shall be 
registered as aforesaid, shall at any time hereafter be deemed, ad- 
judged or holden, within the territories of this Commonwealth, as 
slaves or servants for life, but as free men and free women; except 
the domestic slaves attending upon Delegates in Congress from the 
other American States, foreign Ministers and Consuls, and persons 
passing through or sojourning in this State, and not becoming resi- 
dent therein, and seamen employed in ships not belonging to any in- 
habitant of this State, nor employed in any ship owned by any such 
inhabitant; provided such domestic slaves be not alienated or sold 
to any inhabitant, nor (except in the case of Members of Congress, 
Foreign Ministers and Consuls) retained in this State longer than 
six months. 

XL Provided always, and be it further enacted, That this act, 
or anything in it contained, shall not give any relief or shelter to any 
absconding or runaway Negro or Mulatto slave or servant, who has 
absented himself, or shall absent himself, from his or her owner, 
master or mistress, residing in any other State or county, but such 
owner, master or mistress shall have like right to aid, to demand, 
claim and take away his slave or servant, as he might have had in 
case this act had not been made; and that all Negro and Mulatto 
slaves now owned and heretofore resident in this State, who have 
absented themselves, or been clandestinely carried away, or who may 
be employed abroad as seamen, and have not returned or been 
brought back to their owners, masters or mistresses, before the pass- 
ing of this act, may, within five years, be registered, as effectually as 
is ordered by this act concerning those who are now within the State, 
on producing such slave before any two Justices of the Peace, and 
satisfying the said Justices, by proof of the former residence, abscond- 
ing, taking away, or absence of such slaves, as aforesaid, who there- 
upon shall direct and order the said slave to be entered on the record 
as aforesaid. 

XTT. And whereas attempts may be made to evade this act, by 
introducing into this State Negroes and Mulattoes bound by cove- 
nant to serve for long and unreasonable terms of years, if the same 
be not prevented. 

XIII. Be it therefore enacted, That no covenant of personal 
servitude or apprenticeship whatsoever shall be rated or binding upon 
a Negro or Mulatto for a longer time than seven years, unless such 



A Study In Economic History 207 



servant or apprentice were, at the commencement of such servitude 
or apprenticeship, under the age of twenty-one years; in which case 
such Negro or Mulatto may be holden as a servant or apprentice, re- 
spectively, according to the covenant as the case shall be, until he 
or she shall attain the age of twenty-eight years, but no longer. 

XIV. And be it further enacted, That an act of Assembly of the 
Province of Pennsylvania, passed in the year one thousand seven hun- 
dred five, entitled, "An Act for the Trial of Negroes;" and another 
act of the Assembly of the said Province, passed in the year one thou- 
sand seven hundred twenty-five, entitled, "An Act for the Better 
Regulating of Negroes in this Province;" and another act of Assem- 
bly of the said Province, passed in the year one thousand seven hun- 
dred sixty-one, entitled, "An Act for Laying a Duty on Negro and 
Mulatto Slaves Imported into This Province;" and also another act 
of Assembly of said Province, passed in the year one thousand seven 
hundred seventy-three, entitled, "An Act for Making Perpetual an 
Act for Laying a Duty on Negro and Mulatto Slaves Imported into 
This Province," and for laying an additional duty on said slaves, shall 
be and are hereby repealed, annuled and made void." 

Passed March i, 1780. Recorded in Law Books, Volume No. l, 
Page No. 339. 



ADVERTISEMENT FOR RUNAWAY NEGRO SLAVE. 

"American Weekly Mercury, Philadelphia. Printed and Sold by 
Andrew Bradford. Dec. 29, 1719. Second Issue. Advertisement: 
"Run away from his master, Phillip Ludwell, of Green Spring, in Vir- 
ginia, on Saturday, the fourth of July, 1719, a mulatto man named 
Johnny, but of a very white complexion, aged about twenty-two years. 
He is tall and well limb'd, he has a little lump on the small of his left 
leg, and small holes punched in the upper part of each ear, short dark- 
hair and broad teeth (he is my coach-man). Whoever shall take up 
such mulatto slave and bring him to his said master in Virginia, or 
to Henry Evans at Philadelphia, or give notice thereof so that he may 
be had again, shall have five pounds as reward, with all reasonable 
charges paid by Phillip or Henry Evans." 



FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA, 
GERMANTOWN, FEB. 18, 1688. 

"This is to the Monthly Meeting held at Richard Worrell's. 
These are the reasons why we are against the traffic of men-body as 
followeth. Is there any that would be done or handled at this man- 
ner? Viz: To be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life? 
How fearful and faint-hearted are many on sea, when they see a 



208 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



strange vessel, being afraid it should be a Turk, and they should be 
taken and sold for slaves in Turkey. Now what is better done than 
Turks do? Yea, rather worse for them, which say they are Chris- 
tians; for we hear that the most part of such Negroes are brought 
hither against their will and consent, and that many of them are stolen. 
Now, though they are black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty 
to have them slaves (than) it is to have other white ones. There 
is a saying that we shall do to all men like as we will be done our- 
selves, making no difference of which generation, descent, or color 
they are. And those ,who steal and rob men, and those who buy or 
purchase them, are not they all alike? Here is liberty of conscience, 
which is right and reasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty of 
the body, except of evildoers, which is another case. But to bring 
them hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand 
against. In Europe there are many oppressed for conscience sake; 
and here are those oppressed who are of a black colour. And we 
know that men must not commit adultery, some do commit adultery 
in others, separating wives from their husbands and giving them to 
others; and some sell the children of these poor creatures to other 
men. Ah! do consider well this thing, you who do it; if you would 
be done at this manner? And if it is done according to Christianity? 
You surpass Holland or Germany in this thing. This makes an ill- 
report in all those countries in Europe when they hear of (it), that 
the Quakers do here handle men as they handle their cattle, and for 
that reason some have no mind or inclination to come hither. And 
who shall maintain this your cause, or plead for it? Truly we cannot 
do so, except you shall inform us better thereof, Viz: That Christians 
have liberty to practice these things. Pray, what thing in the world 
can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us 
away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries; separating hus- 
bands from their wives and children. Being now this is not done in the 
manner we should be done (by), therefore we contradict, and are 
against this traffic of men-body, and we who profess that it is not 
lawful to steal, must likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are 
stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possible. 
And such men ought to be delivered out of the hands of robbers, 
and set free as in Europe. Then in Pennsylvania to have a good 
report, it hath now a bad one for this sake in other countries. Espe- 
cially whereas the Europeans are desirous to know in what manner 
the Quakers do rule in their province: and most of them do look upon 
us with an envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say is 
done evil? 

"If once these slaves (which they say are so wicked and stub- 
born men) should join themselves, fight for their freedom and handle 
their masters and mistresses as they did handle them before, will 
these masters and mistresses take the sword at hand and war against 
these poor slaves, like, we are able to believe, some will not refuse 
to do? Or have these Negroes not much right to fight for their free- 
dom, as you have to keep them slaves? 

"Now consider well this thing, if it is good or bad? And in case 



A Study In Economic History 209 



you find it to be good to handle these blacks in that manner, we 
desire and require you hereby lovingly, that you may inform us here- 
in what at this time never was done, Viz: That Christians have such a 
liberty to do so. To this end we shall (may) be satisfied in this 
point, and satisfy likewise our good friends, and acquaintances in our 
native country, to whom it is a terror or fearful thing, that men 
should be handled so in Pennsylvania. 

"This is from our meeting at Germantown, held on ye 18 of the 
2 month, 1688, to be delivered to the Monthly Meeting at Richard 
Worrell's. 

GARRET HENDERICH, 
DERICK UP DEGREFF, 
FRANCIS DANIELL PASTORIUS, 
ABRAHAM j'r DEN GRAEF." 

"At our Monthly Meeting at Dublin, ye 30-2 mo., 1688, we, having 
inspected ye matter above mentioned and considered of it, we find it 
so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it 
here, but to commit to ye consideration of ye Quarterly Meeting: Ye 
tenor of it being nearly related to ye truth. 

"On behalf of ye Monthly Meeting. 
(Signed) P. JO. HART." 

But the Quarterly Meeting only referred it to the Yearly Meet- 
ing, making the following note: 

"This, above mentioned, was read in our Quarterly Meeting, at 
Philadelphia, the 4 of ye 4th mo., '88, and was from thence recom- 
mended to the Yearly Meeting, and the above said Derick, and the 
other two mentioned therein, to present the same to ye above said 
Meeting, it being a thing of too great weight for this Meeting to 
determine. 

"Signed by order of ye Meeting, ANTHONY MORRIS." 



PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE OF NEGRO POPULATION 
OF PENNSYLVANIA AND OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Whites — Percent. Negroes — Percent. 

Before the Civil War. Penna. U. S. Penna. U. S. 

1790 to 1800 38.2 35.8 58.4 32.3 

1800 to 1810 34.2 36.1 43.1 37.5 

1810 to 1820 29.5 34.2 30.6 28.6 

1820 to 1830 28.0 33.9 26.0 31.4 

1830 to 1840 28.0 34.7 25.0 23.4 

1840 to 1850 34.7 37.8 1 1.9 26.6 

1850 to i860 26.2 37.8 6.2 22.1 

After the Civil War. 

i860 to 1870 21.3 24.8 14.7 9.9 

1870 to 1880 21.4 29.2 31.0 34.9 

1880 to 1890 22.7 27.0 25.8 13.8 

1800 to 1900 193 2I - 2 45-8 18.0 

1900 to 1910 .... .... 

14 



210 



The Negro In Pennsylvania 



SOURCE OF FREE COLORED POPULATION OF PHILADEL- 
PHIA IN i860 AND OF NEGRO POPULATION OF 
PHILADELPHIA AND PENNSYLVANIA IN 1000. 

States in which born 

Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 1.05 0.474 17.41 = 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

New Hampshire .... 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 13.724 22,835 70,365 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia 1.241 16.360 40,870 26. 

Wisconsin 

District of Columbia. 

\t Sea 

Not Stated 

Alaska 

Arizona 

Colorado 

Hawaii 

Idaho 

Indian Territory .... 
Montana 



Philadelphia 


Pennsylvania 


1860 1900 


1900 


I III 


415 


O 18 


67 


2 48 


43 


38 I08 


164 


2,977 2,527 


5,944 


94 


184 


58 429 


926 


2 64 


167 


3 32 


134 


• > » • * 


44 


9 


27 


13 59 


657 


25 57 


151 


10 17 


26 


1,976 9.474 


17.415 


48 183 


294 


26 


89 


4 13 


13 


1 54 


160 


7 27 


127 


3 6 


5 


1,047 i,77i 


2,57i 


138 697 


1,199 


100 3,403 


5,206 


17 172 


1,696 


.... 1 


3 


13,724 22,835 


70,365 


9 52 


74 


205 577 


1,009 


3 109 


835 


42 


95 


3 10 


16 


1,241 16,369 


40,870 


36 


17 


145 1,185 


2,067 


1 6 


.... 


71 238 


774 


1 1 


1 


7 


16 


1 


1 


.... 2 


5 


35 


11 



A Study In Economic History 



211 



Stales in which born 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Mexico 

North Dakota 

Oklahoma 

South Dakota 

Utah 

Washington 

West Virginia , 

Wyoming 

Porto Rico 

Americans born 

abroad 

Total 



Philadelphia 
I860 1900 

12 



2 
II 

5 

2 

I 

76 
197 



Pennsylvania 
1900 

14 
I 
I 

I 

I 
2 

159 

1,917 

2 



29 



21,922 



62,253 



I55,98i 



SOUTHERN STATES TO WHICH PENNSYLVANIA BORN 
NEGROES HAVE MIGRATED AND VICE VERSA 



Col. 



States 

Delaware 
Maryland 
District of 

Virginia 

West Virginia . . 
North Carolina. 
South Carolina . 

Georgia 

Florida 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Louisiana 

Arkansas 

Texas 



Negroes born in 
Pennsylvania liv- 
ing in specified 
Southern States 

848 

1,141 

586 

450 

311 

137 

32 

65 

94 

85 

84 

56 

75 
118 

73 
140 



Negroes born in 
specified Southern 
States now living 
in Pennsylvania 

5,944 
17,415 

2,067 
40,870 

1,917 
5,206 
1,009 

926 

184 

657 

835 

415 

160 

151 
67 

95 



Excess in 
favor of 
Pennsyl- 
vania 



CITIES HAVING OVER 500 NEGROES i860, AND 

Cities I860 

Allegheny City 690 

Braddock Borough 

Carlisle 509 

Chambersburg 5 2 4 

Chester City 4^7 



Excess in 

favor of 

Southern 

States 

5,098 
16,274 

1,481 

40,420 

I,6o6 

5,009 

977 
861 

00 
572 
75i 
359 

85 

43 
7 

54 



1900 
1900 

3,315 
558 

1,148 
769 

4,405 



212 



The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Citi 


es 






I860 






1909 


Columbia . 








648 






421 


Harrisburg 


City .... 






1,321 






4,107 


Homestead 


Borough 






.... 






640 


Lancaster C 
McKeesporl 
Norristown 


"itv 






29 






777 


■ City 












748 


Borough 






382 






728 


Philadelphia 
Pittsburgh 
Reading Ci 
Scranton C 
Steelton B< 


City 






22,185 




62,1 


City 






M54 




1 


7,040 








285 






534 








1 






521 








.... 






1,508 


Uniontown 


Borough 


(Fayette 


Co) 


.... 






803 


Washington 


Borough 


, 












(Washington County) . . . 




435 






984 






56i 






i,777 


Wi'kes-Barre City . . 






.... 






680 














1,142 


York City 








334 


iTION 


BY ^ 


776 


HTION NEGRO 






DISTRIBL 


CITY POPUL/ 


VARDS, 








1900. 










Philadel- 


Pitts- 


All 


e- 


Scran- 


Wilkes 


- Harris- 


Wards. 


phia. 


burgh. 


gheny. Reading 


. ton. 


Barre. burg. 


i 


712 


161 


269 2 


3 


27 


310 


2 


i,3i9 


167 


847 10 


7 


n 


467 


3 


1,704 


49 


75- 


! 55 


2 




100 


4 


2,875 


50 


116 26 


1 


61 


339 


5 


1,251 


211 


363 13 


2 


104 


99 


6 


no 


219 


236 44 




21 


550 


7 


10,462 


1,208 




57 


15 


20 


467 


8 


2,464 


2.595 


] 


[ 109 


44 


63 


1,506 


9 


606 


55 


188 139 


130 


13 


170 


10 


792 


3 


238 3 


4 


35 


9 


n 


36 


1,489 


153 17 




82 




12 


286 


844 


147 12 




45 




13 


57i 


3,025 


5 1 


25 


129 




14 


1,961 


676 




21 


43 


31 




15 


2,423 


405 




4 


8 


19 




16 


102 


401 




21 


143 


19 




17 


125 


278 


. . 




65 






18 


18 


83 


. . 




16 






19 


270 


1,326 


. . 




1 






20 


2,821 


1,108 


. . 




10 






21 


464 


1,881 


. . 










22 


3,676 


211 












23 


794 


27 













A Study In Economic History 



213 



Wards 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

Total 



Philadel- 
phia 

2,193 

236 

2,874 

3J7I 
1,164 
3,l6o 
5,242 
29 

962 

766 
i,773 

364 
i,955 

284 

675 
831 
689 
383 

62,613 



Pitts 
burgh 

6 

23 
120 

25 
62 
1 
25 
19 
160 

36 

90 

43 
119 

39 



Alle- Scran- 

gheny Reading 



Wilkes- 
Barre 



Harris- 
fa u 



17,040 3,315 



534 



521 



680 



4,107 



NEGRO POPULATION IN COUNTIES HAVING NO LARGE CITY 
SHOWING DECREASE IN 20 AND 10 YEARS 

Counties 1880 1890 1900 20 yrs 10 yrs 

Adams 471 319 338 3 

Bedford 577 587 499 78 88 

Bradford 537 509 307 230 292 

Butler 128 154 115 13 39 

Corbon 8 36 12 .... 24 

Clarion 99 72 16 83 56 

Clinton 286 324 253 33 71 

Columbia 145 118 126 19 .... 

Crawford 493 314 359 134 

Cumberland 2,167 2,091 1,818 354 273 

Erie 322 308 311 21 

Franklin 2,551 2,019 1,954 597 65 

Fulton 129 112 106 23 6 

Greene 503 445 313 190 132 

Indiana 227 212 160 67 52 

Juniata 261 170 172 89 .... 

Lancaster 2,845 2,603 2,461 384 148 

McKean 326 299 302 24 .... 

Mercer 425 304 351 74 

Mifflin 215 169 162 53 7 

Monroe 155 176 151 4 25 



214 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Counties 1880 1890 1900 20 yrs 10 yrs 

Montour 107 96 88 19 8 

Perry , . . , . . 164 137 82 82 55 

Pike 84 107 81 3 26 

Schuylkill 358 374 252 106 122 

Snyder 19 505 3 16 2 

Susquehanna 219 162 141 78 21 

Tioga 115 91 85 30 6 

Union 133 52 65 68 

Venango 547 473 522 25 

Warren 103 75 52 51 23 

Wayne 31 33 18 13 15 

Wyoming 21 8 14 7 .... 



AGE DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION IN PENNSYL- 
VANIA AND SOUTHERN STATES FROM WHICH 
NEGROES EMIGRATE CHIEFLY. 

Pennsylvania Virginia North Carolina 

Age Periods No. Per Cent No. Per Cent No. Per Cent 

Under 15 39-947 25.5 267,410 40.5 268.074 4^-9 

15 to 29 55.697 35-5 189,416 28.7 184.183 29.5 

30 to 44 37,971 24.2 101,727 15.4 80,514 12.9 

45 to 59 16,099 10.3 62,892 9.5 57,9io 9-3 

59 and over 6,345 40 36,922 5.5 30,803 4.9 

Unknown 786 0.5 2,355 0.4 2,985 0.5 

Totals 156,845 100.0 660,722 100.0 624,459 1 00.0 



CONJUGAL CONDITION OF NEGROES IN PENNSYLVA- 
NIA AND VIRGINIA, THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF 
NEGRO IMMIGRATION, COMPARED WITH CONJU- 
GAL CONDITION OF NEGROES IN THE U S. 

Negroes of U. S. Virginia Pennsylvania. 

Number. P. C. Number. Females Males. Total 

Single 5,346,262 60.5 420,248 40,815 47,584 88,399 

Married 2,867,572 32.5 197,968 28,314 28,276 50,590 

Widowed 565,396 6.4 39,940 8,046 3,055 11,101 

Divorced 33,071 -4 i,"5 J 79 *35 3*4 

Unknown 21,693 -4 i,45* H3 298 441 

Totals 8,833,994 660,722 79,348 77.497 156,845 



A Study In Economic History 215 



ILLITERACY OF PENNSYLVANIA NEGROES COMPARED WITH 
NEGROES OF OTHER SECTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES 

1900 

Negroes of Total Illiterates. P. C. 

10 Years and Over. 

Continental United States ... . 6,415.681 2,853,194 445 

North Atlantic States 320,176 44,275 i3-» 

North Central States 404,568 87,914 21.7 

Western States 25,862 3,399 U 1 

South Atlantic States 2,655,833 1,250,279 47- 1 

South Central States 3,009,142 1,467,327 4»» 

Pennsylvania 28,935 19,53* !5-i 

New York 84,688 9,180 10.8 

New Jersey 57,534 9,882 17.2 

Massachusetts • 26,573 2,853 10.7 

Virginia 478,921 213,836 44-6 

North Carolina 437,691 208,132 47-6 

South Carolina 537,398 283,883 52.8 

Georgia 724,096 379.o6 7 52.4 

Alabama 589,629 338,605 52.4 

Mississippi 638,646 313,312 59-1 

Louisiana 464,598 284,028 61.1 



PROPERTY HOLDING AMONG NEGROES. 



FROM REPORT OF INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS, 1911. 



SUMMARY OF NEGRO PROPERTY HOLDING IN PHILA- 
DELPHIA. A REPORT BY R. R. WRIGHT, JR. 

Tax 

Ward Properties. valuation. 

j 10 $19,700 

2 I 2,700 

,, 20 60,600 

c . ... . ' 6 23,400 

7 172 584,900 

g 36 290,400 

Q 1 12,000 

IO 2 17,000 

I2 1 2,900 

n '■*' 1 2,300 

l4 "" 10 32,600 

! e ' 25 62,400 

lg 2 3.4OO 



216 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Ward 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

A2 

44 

45 

46 

47 

Totals 1,080 $2,801,275 



Properties. 


Tax Valuation 


24 


53,200 


IO 


23,00O 


96 


215,300 


13 


11,700 


37 


73,000 


47 


93,900 


37 


92,500 


114 


27,600 


5 


II,000 


168 


484,200 


3 


4,300 


11 


22,400 


4 


I,7O0 


35 


48,000 


8 


6,250 


84 


159,300 


7 


I4,5O0 


24 


50,100 


2 


3,000 


66 


63,325 


2 


1,900 


7 


10,800 


28 


54,900 


4 


3,4O0 


H 


26,800 


46 


I29,IOO 



SUMMARY OF PROPERTIES OF NEGROES OF PITTS- 
BURGH. 

Ward. Taxables. Assessed value. Real value. 

First 1 $26,400 $26,400 

Second .' 2 26,300 40,000 

Third 44 236,520 367,000 

Fourth 10 23,370 34,850 

Fifth 168 331,920 508,350 

Sixth 24 42,840 62,900 

Seventh 18 80.530 118,500 

Eighth 9 15,830 22,500 

Ninth 13 15,860 23,300 

Tenth 80 88,700 132,050 

Eleventh 24 62,890 95,300 

Twelfth 25 50,770 74,500 

Thirteenth 51 H4.340 175,000 

Fourteenth 5 7,120 10,400 

Fifteenth 4 3,820 5,400 



A Study In Economic History 



211 



Ward 

Sixteenth 

Seventeenth 

Eighteenth 

Nineteenth 

Twentieth 

Twenty-first 

Twenty-second . . . 
Twenty-third 
Twenty-fourth . . . 

Twenty-fifth 

Twenty-sixth 
Twenty-seventh . . 

Total 

Exemptions 

Grand total . 



Taxables 

2 

6 

62 

II 

"6 

9 
4 

I 

25 

16 
5 



643 
38 



681 



Assessed Value Real Value 

4,120 5.9OO 

28,140 42,200 

89,560 I33,8oO 

14,990 2I,700 

13,240 19,800 

28,550 42,800 

I2,400 18,400 

3,000 4,500 

79J50 115,700 

27,160 40,680 

9,540 14,300 

$1,437,000 $2,153,830 
406,853 

$1,437,060 $2,560,683 



PROPERTY HOLDING OF NEGROES IN OTHER 

NIA CITIES AND TOWNS 



PENNSYLVA- 



Town or District. 



County. 



Williamsport Lycoming ... 

Washington Washington . 

Carlisle Cumberland 

Darby Delaware . . . 

Scranton Lackawanna 

Meadville Crawford . . . 

Lewistown Mifflin 

Franklin Venango 

Uniontown Fayette .... 

Titusville Crawford .. 

Ardmore Montgomery 

Harrisburg, 2 wards. . . . Dauphin 

Langhorne Bucks 

Lancaster Lancaster .. 

Canonsburg Washington 

Robesonia Berks 

Norwood Delaware . . 

Sharon Hill Delaware .. 

Edgemont Delaware .. 

Lansdowne Delaware . . 

Ashton Delaware .. 

Prospect Park Delaware .. 

Concord Delaware . . 

Glenolden Delaware . . 



Properties. 



93 
95 
81 

69 
11 
27 
22 
20 
21 
18 
24 
41 
26 

25 

14 

1 



8 

5 
1 

7 
5 
2 

9 

2 



Assessed 
value. 

$50,840 

214,450 

129,700 

72,920 

113,000 

15,060 

19,375 

n,875 

25,000 

13,040 
64,250 
41,900 
16,950 
54,9O0 
46,300 
900 
107,350 

3,075 
500 
10,850 
4,300 
1,400 
6,760 
1,400 



Market 
value. 

$70,000 

327,050 

309,500 

119,300 

165,000 

38,100 

38,750 

31,700 

33,325 
38,480 
96,400 
66,800 
22,400 
73,ooo 
59,800 
1,200 
115,100 

3,975 
650 
11,650 
5,725 
1,850 
6,760 
2, IOC 



218 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Assessed Market 
Town or District County. Properties. value. value. 

Lower Chichester Delaware 

Clifton Heights Delaware 

Marple Delaware 

Marcus Hook Delaware 

Chester, 2 wards Delaware 

Swarthmore Delaware 

Ridley Park Delaware 

Colwyn Delaware 

Haverford Delaware 

Springfield Delaware 

Bristol Bucks 

Lower Makefield Bucks 

East Rock Hill Bucks 

Morrisville Bucks 

Yardley Bucks 

Richland Bucks 

Falk Bucks 

Wrightstown Bucks . .*. 

South Langhorne Bucks 

Mechanic Valley Bucks 

Nockamixon Bucks 

Emilie Bucks 

Ruscomburaner Bucks 

West Rockville Bucks 

Newtown Bucks 

Marietta Lancaster 

Smethport McKean 

Bradford McKean 

Mifnintown Juniata 

Montrose Susquehanna 

Sewickley Allegheny 

Braddock Allegheny 

Swatara Dauphin 

Omerlin Dauphin 

Royalton Dauphin 

Middletown Dauphin 

Steelton Dauphin 

Lower Paxton Dauphin 

Penbrook Dauphin 

Highspire Dauphin 

Catawissa Columbia 

Bloomsburg Columbia 

Tilden Berks 

Upper Bern Berks 

Wyomissing Berks 

Reading Berks 

Stroudsburg Monroe 



8 


5. 240 


7,700 


2 


1,600 


2,100 


4 


3,150 


4,250 


6 


3,30O 


4,500 


14 


21,900 


28,000 


3 


i,790 


2,975 


3 


3,200 


4,000 


4 


2,850 


5,300 


4 


4,7oo ' 


6,250 


4 


2,75o 


3,300 


17 


6,650 


ii,775 


5 


1,925 


2,550 


4- 


2,120 


3,100 


6 


3,75o 


5,100 


5 


2,000 


2,000 


2 


3,175 


4,100 


5 


2,612 


2,475 


2 


1,300 


2,000 


I 


125 


150 


II 


3,150 


3,150 


I 


1,080 


1,200 


2 


500 


1,000 


2 


225 


275 


3 


870 


1,150 


4 


i,350 


1,600 


24 


8,100 


2,700 


5 


2,850 


4,5oo 


13 


18,180 


40,750 


I 


700 


1,000 


17 


2,200 


8,240 


ii 


24,150 


32,500 


35 


104,475 


156,700 


5 


4,760 


6,350 


7 


2,700 


3,400 


2 


600 


900 


14 


8,470 


11,260 


7 


10,800 


14,390 


2 


4,200 


5,8oo 


2 


160 


250 


1 


400 


500 


2 


725 


1,000 


II 


3,98o 


9,950 


3 


1,740 


2,150 


i 


80 


80 


i 


100 


150 


18 


41,925 


62,750 


9 


6,275 


8.375 



A Study In Economic History 



219 



Town or District. 



Assessed 
County. Properties, value. 



Lewisburg Union 

Kingsley Forest 

Sunbury Borough Northumberland 

Warren Warren 

Milton Northumberland 

Courtney Washington 

Greensburg Westmoreland . 

Hegins Schuylkill 

Connellsville Fayette 

Vanderbilt Fayette 

Cito Fulton 

Three Towns Beaver 

Coudersport Beaver , 

Huntersville Beaver 

Elizabeth Allegheny 

Doylestown Bucks 



4 
i 
i 
i 
8 
4 

13 
3 

II 

13 

7 

32 

2 

I 

28 

3 



2,100 

40 

240 

1,500 

3.550 

5.700 

18,600 

3,50O 

6,150 

16,250 

2,060 

33.6oo 

960 

500 

24,780 

1,600 



Market 
value. 

3.500 
120 
800 

3,5oo 

15,150 

10,200 

27,900 

7,800 

9,9O0 

21,475 
2,860 

64,500 

1,500 

650 

32,900 
1,800 



1,072 $1,351,217 $2,316,865 



ADDITIONAL PROPERTY OWNERS 



Place. Property holders 

Bedford Springs 20 

Bradford •• 10 

Chester 102 

Coatesville 50 

Columbia 25 

Erie 2 

Homestead 28 

Irvine 4 

Johnstown 25 

McKeesport 3° 

Morton 22 

Oil City 28 

Tyrone 5 

Waynesburg 12 

West Chester 125 

West Newton 4 

Wilkes-Barre 36 

York 5o 

Totals 5/8 



Market value 

$10,000 
75,000 

100,000 

150,000 
35,ooo 
15,000 

150,000 
5,000 
35,ooo 
10,000 
25,000 
35.000 
4,50O 
10,000 

400,000 

75,000 
80,000 

$1,214,500 



220 "The Negro In Pennsylvania 



SUMMARY 

Number property Market 

Place. holders Assessed value value 

Philadelphia i,o8o $2,801,275 $3,735,ooo 

Pittsburgh 643 1,437,060 2,153,830 

Eighty-seven towns and cities 1,072 1,351,217 2,316,865 

Eighteen towns 578 1,214,500 

Totals 3>373 $5-589,552 $9,420,195 



CHURCH PROPERTY. 

A great deal of the property of Negroes is in churches. Among 
the various influences which the church has had, has been the en- 
couragement of co-operative buying of church properties. Many 
Negroes learned, for the first time, what a deed meant, or a builders' 
contract, or a mortgage, etc., from his participation in church buy- 
ing and building. The Census Department reported in 1906, that 
Negroes owned about $58,000,000 worth of church property in the 
United States, of which fully $50,000,000 worth was unencumbered. 
As will be seen, Pennsylvania Negroes own more than their share, 
which is due largely to the fact that in this State Negro churches 
took root very early and have always been encouraged as one of the 
influential factors for the better development of the race. 

There are about 150 Baptist Churches in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania, but only 73 of them reported to the State Baptist Convention, 
and of these, only 44 reported their value, which was put at $785,230. 
An average of about $17,850 each. These, of course, were the best 
properties. The balance of about 100 churches include about fifty 
which are more or less temporary and own but little property. If the 
average of these 100 Baptist Churches is $1000, that would give an 
additional $100,000 of church property, and a total of $885,230, the 
value of the property of Negro Baptists. There are 196 African 
Methodist Churches in the State, of which 136 are of the African 
Methodist Episcopal denomination and 60 African Methodist Episco- 
pal Zion denomination. Of the former 106 reported at the last con- 
ference session, a property valuation of $1,067,213. Allowing a valu- 
ation of $100 each for the 36 not reported, we have 136 properties 
of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania valued at $1,097,213. Of the latter, 46 reported property valu- 



A Study In Economic History 221 

ed at $553,824, an average of about $12,000 each. If the average 
value of the remaining 14 African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches 
is $1000, the total valuation would be about $567,824. 

There were fourteen Presbyterian Churches whose value is esti- 
mated at $190,000, and eight Episcopal Churches valued at about 
$100,000. There are a number of Negro congregations of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, the chief ones being in Philadelphia and 
Pittsburgh. They own about $250,000 worth of property. Other 
churches are the A. U. M. P., the Church of God, Congregational 
and C. M. E. Church, and several independent churches who own 
property valued at about $100,000. This would make the total amount 
of church property owned by Negroes approximately, as follows: 

Baptists $885,230 

A. M. E 1,067,213 

A. M. E. Zion 567,824 

Methodist (North) 250,000 

Presbyterian 190,000 

Episcopalian 100,000 

Other denominations 100,000 

Total value of church property .... $3,160,267 



GENERAL ESTIMATE OF PROPERTY. 

By the above it is seen that in the cities of Philadelphia and 
Pittsburgh, the assessed value of property, exclusive of churches, is 
$4,238,335; that in eighty-seven other cities and towns the assessed 
value of 1072 properties is $1,351,217, making a total of $5,589,552, 
having a market value of $8,205,695. To this market value must be 
added the estimated holdings of Negroes in eighteen other cities and 
towns with a market value of $1,214,500 and $3,160,260, the value 
of church property, making a total of $12,580,455 as the value of hold- 
ings of Negroes in this State. 

If we consider the difficulty of obtaining data, and scan carefully 
the list of places reported, we must conclude that this estimate is 
possibly 25 per cent, under the real holdings of Negroes in the State. 
I would estimate that they own property, the most conservative esti- 
mate of whose value is $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. 



222 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 

POPULATION, PROPERTY HOLDINGS, ETC., NOT IN- 
CLUDED IN iPRECEDING REPORT. 



Short sketches of Negroes in Pennsylvania cities and towns, com- 
piled from letters from city and town officials, resident ministers, 
teachers, physicians, etc., and personal observation: 

ALTOONA, Blair County; population 1900: 38,566 whites, 407 
colored. Estimated colored population in 1907 was 1000. Negroes are 
scattered more or less, but find it difficult to rent. There are about 25 
home owners, having about $300,000 worth of property; one Negro 
is reputed to be worth $250,000, owning some of the most valuable 
portions of the city. Chief businesses are: 1 contractor, 1 retail furni- 
ture store, occupying about 2500 square feet of space; 1 pool room, 2 
restaurants. 7 barber shops, 25 independent teamsters, 4 teamsters 
and excavators, 1 tailor, 10 plasterers, 1 dying establishment. Wages 
of the women in domestic service from $3.00 to $5.00 per week, and 
$1.00 per day. Men get $1.50 per day. Three churches: A. M. E., 
A. M. E. Z., and Baptist, with a total of 138 members. Masons, Odd 
Fellows, True Reformers. Mixed school, no Negro teachers; 2 po- 
licemen, 1 high school graduate in 1907 now attending Howard Uni- 
versity, 1 in 1906. 

BEDFORD SPRINGS, Bedford County: 1 colored lawyer, 3 
barbers, more waiters, about 25 persons own their homes; one Negro 
worth $5000, 1 farmer owns 65 acres. One young woman graduated 
in 1906, and now in college, none in 1907, 4 since 1900; several cases 
of inter-marriage between Negroes and whites. 

BLOOMSBURG, Columbia County: 6067 whites, 97 colored. 
There are 4 Negro property owners, one farmer having 30 acres, 3 
barber shops, shaving both colored and white; 7 women in silk mills, 
others in hotels and domestic service; 1 church, no inter-marriage, 
mixed schools, 1 death in 1906, 3 births, 2 still births. 

COATESVILLE, Chester County. Population/1900: 5288 white, 
433 colored. Estimated Negro population 1907, 1000. Negroes chief- 
ly day laborers and in domestic and personal service; about a dozen 
men in business; chief businesses are a blacksmith shop, groceries, 



A Study In Economic History 223 



tailoring, barbering, dressmaking, express and hauling, i physician, 
a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School; 4 
school teachers, 1 postoffice employe, 6 firemen, 1 policeman, 50 prop- 
erty holders, value of property estimated at $150,000; 4 churches. 
Much immigration from South during recent years; race prejudice 
has increased; 1 case of inter-marriage. 

COLUMBIA, Columbia County. Population, 11,893; 4 2 3 color- 
ed. Negroes came to this town as early as 1819, most of them be- 
ing manumitted slaves from Virginia; at a later time some fugitive 
slaves were among them. After passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 
1850, there was considerable emigration of many of the best Negroes, 
not less than 75 persons. Columbia was one of the most important 
places in the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania, and held among 
its population some of the most prominent Negroes. Both Stephen 
Smith, the lumber merchant and philanthropist, and William Whipple 
lived here. At present there are about 500 Negroes who work chiefly 
in domestic service and do common labor on traction road, and some 
few are employed in the rolling mill, which has one colored foreman. 
Wages for men very from $1.25 per day to $1.50. There are 2 
churches: 1 A. M. E., 1 Baptist; a separate primary school having 
two teachers and 56 pupils — 28 girls and 27 boys between the ages of 
6 and 14 years. There are three Negro children in the High School, 
but no graduates. The businesses are all small, and consist of 2 bar- 
ber shops, 3 teamsters, 1 small notion store, 1 small grocery, 1 itiner- 
ant meat dealer and 2 boarding houses. There are lodges of Odd 
Fellows and True Reformers and Household of Ruth. The Metro- 
politan Life Insurance Society and the Baltimore Mutual do a good 
business among the Negroes. The Negroes live chiefly in small one- 
and two-story houses, made of rough boards, on alleys from 12 to 20 
feet wide; some of these houses are worn out and about to fall, while 
others are newly painted or whitewashed, and appear neat. A few 
families live in brick houses on Fifth street. There are about 25 
property holders with property valued at about $35,000. The com- 
munity has made practically no progress in a generation. 

ELIZABETH, Allegheny County. Total population in 1900 was 
1866. About 20 families own properties valued from $1500 upward. 
One man has a large grocery and employs 2 persons. Two teamsters, 
2 pupils in High School; no graduates. 



224 The Ne&ro In Pennsylvania 



ERIE, Erie County. 52,483 whites and 250 colored. 2 ice creara 
manufacturers and 2 barber shops are the chief businesses. Negro men 
arc waiters, porters, laborers in stores and foundry; women work in 
private families. There is 1 policeman, 1 young woman graduated 
from High School in 1907, now bookkeeper in ice cream factory. 
There are two farmers, 1 owning 59 acres; 1 Negro is said to be 
worth $75,000. There are 6 cases of inter-marriage among the races, 
Negro men marrying white women in every case. More emigration 
than immigration. Emigrants go chiefly to rolling mill centre at 
Youngstown, Ohio. 1 A. M. E. Church, 30 members; 1 lodge of 
Masons. 

FRANKLIN, Venango County. Population: 7043 whites and 
274 colored. Negroes work chiefly in steel mills and oil refinery, 
averaging $1.50 per day; some are waiters, porters and general labor- 
ers; women are domestic servants. There are 12 property holders; 
1 girl graduate of High School in 1906 studying music; 1 young man 
graduated in 1907 and is studying pharmacy. There is one store- 
keeper, 4 churches: 1 A. M. E., 1 A. M. E. Z., 1 Free Methodist, 1 
Wesleyan Church. True Reformers and Masons have lodges. 

GREENSBURG, Westmoreland County. Population, 1900: 
6374 whites, 134 colored. Business: 1 restaurant, 1 tailor and dyer, 
1 barber, 1 shining parlor. Negroes in domestic service chiefly. 7 
persons own homes. 

HARRISBURG, Dauphin County, Capital of Pennsylvania. 
46,044 whites, 2107 Negroes, 10 Chinese, 6 Indians. Estimated Negro 
population in 1907, 6000. Negroes live chiefly in three or four "settle- 
ments" of four or five blocks each. The oldest is within one block of 
the State Capitol and the depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad, about 
South, Short, Walnut, State, Cowden and Filbert Streets, and adja- 
cent alleys. Jews and Negroes live side by side. Other Negro set- 
tlements are about Balm Street. There are: 1 undertaker, 1 steam 
fitter, 6 restaurants, 4 caterers, 1 tailor, 1 peanut and coffee roaster, 
1 contractor, 6 expressmen, 1 wrapper manufacturer, 1 notions and 
dry goods store, 7 barbers, 2 hand laundries, 1 shoe repairer, 1 chir- 
opodist, 1 insurance society, I pool room, 8 coal, wood and ice deal- 
ers, i ladies' tailor and dealer in second-hand clothing, 1 Building and 
Loan Association. Chief occupation for both men and women is 
domestic service. There are about 25 Negroes employed as janitors, 
messengers and clerks in the State House, at salaries from $50 per 



A Study In Economic History 225 



month to $1200 per year; 5 Negroes are in postoffice, and 31 in city 
offices, and 5 on the police force. There are 3 physicians, 1 lawyer, 
1 dentist and 10 teachers; 2 A. M. E. Churches, 1 A. M. E. Zion 
Church, Baptist Churches, 1 Presbyterian and 1 Episcopal Churches. 
There are schools composed entirely of Negroes. Four cases of inter- 
marriage are reported. Immigration has been heavy in recent years. 
There are 3 nurses, 2 stenographers and typewriters, 10 graduates 
from High School in 1906. There were 637 arrests in 1905; 77 births 
and 109 deaths; about 175 marriages. 

HOMESTEAD. Allegheny County. Population, 1900, 11,903 
whites, 651 colored; estimated Negro population, 1907, was 800; sub- 
urb of Pittsburgh; built up around the iron and steel industry, in 
which Negro workingmen earning from 00c to ?6 per day. A 
few men do common labor at $1.60 to $1.50 per day; and some are 
porters, butlers and domestic servants. Women earn as domestics 
from $3.50 to $4.50. Negroes have come to Homestead chiefly since 
the strike of 1892, when a number of them were brought there as 
strike breakers. Prior to this time Negroes were few and worked 
chiefly in lumber and brick yards. A few Negroes are helpers on 
open-hearth furnaces, earning from $4 to $6 per day. The chief busi- 
nesses are: 3 groceries, 6 barber shops, 6 teamsters, several carpen- 
ters, masons, 1 undertaker, 2 doctors, 2 men in post office, 1 mail 
clerk and 1 carrier, 2 policemen, 1 graduate from high school in 1907; 
about 28 persons own homes; 1 Negro said to be worth about $100,- 
000; 14 pieces of property, bank stock, stock in coal corporation. 
There is one land company, and one small co-operative grocery store 
started in 1903. 

IRVINE, Warren County; population, 1900, 307; about 70 Ne- 
groes, 4 property holders; 4 barber shops; several coal miners; 2 
small churches, A. M. E. and A. M. E. Zion. 

JOHNSTOWN, Cambria County, 35,613 whites, 323 colored. 
Chief occupations are janitors, waiters, porters; the two largest hotels 
employ Negro waiters. About 25 property holders. Negroes have 
begun to buy because of difficulty in securing homes. Several Negroes 
own more than 1 piece of property and rent to others of their race. 
There are 8 barber shops, 2 hotels, one in the business part of the 
town between the Majestic Theatre and the Columbia Opera House; 
1 transfer company, 1 restaurant, 1 lodging house, 5 expressmen, 1 
contractor (painter), does the work for the Cambria Steel Com- 

15 



226 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

pany; i tar and gravel roofer, employing 10 men; i sign painter, i 
contractor for excavating, now working on railroad with Negroes 
and Hungarians; I newspaper; i real estate dealer, i National Real 
Estate and Investment Company, incorporated at $10,000 in 1905, at 
$5 per share; has branch offices in Alabama, Kansas, Florida and 
South Carolina and Georgia. Johnstown has had only one Negro 
High School graduate. She is now teaching in Washington, D. C. 
There are 2 colored women's clubs; 1 Negro member of the Civic 
Club; Coachmen's and Porter's Club; lodges of Masons, Eastern 
Star, Mystic Shriners, Odd Fellows, Household of Ruth, Knights of 
Pythias, Court of Calanthia, Good Samaritans, 3 churches, 1 Baptist, 
1 A. M. E., 1 A. M. E. Zion. Several cases of intermarriage. 

LEWISTOWN, Mifflin County; total population, 4451; 132 Ne- 
groes; 7 property holders; 3 barber shops, 2 of which shave whites 
only; 1 teamster, 1 dressmaker, 1 notion store; some Negroes in 
steel works and hotels; 1 electrician, 2 churches, with 27 members; 
5 cases of intermarriage; 1 lodge of Odd Fellows. 

McKEESPORT, Allegheny County. Population, 1900. But little 
immigration from the South; 10 business men, 2 ministers, 1 physi- 
cian. Property valued at $80,000; 2 churches, 5 high school graduates, 
10 pupils now in high school. Negroes "are thrifty and manv of 
them are buying property because the tendency is not to rent to them 
in desirable locations." Prejudice against Negroes has increased. 
One Negro on police force said by the chief of police to be "very 
good." 

MEADVILLE, Crawford County, 10,110 whites and 181 colored; 
a college town, 1 church (A. M. E.); no graduates from high school, 
10 property holders; chief work, domestic service, railroad work, 1 
barber, 1 carpenter; value of church and parsonage, $10,000. 

MONONGAHELA, Washington County. Population, 1900, 4§ 2 7 
whites, 346 colored. There are 6 barber shops, 4 teamsters, 1 paver, 
several dressmakers, brick and stone masons; mixed school; no Ne- 
gro teacher; 1 graduate from high school, 1906, and none in 1007; 
no intermarriages. 

MONESSEN, Westmoreland County; 2197 total population 1000; 
about 250 Negroes in 1907. About 150 men work chiefly for Pitts- 
burgh Steel Company, of whom 28 are wire drawers, earning about 
$4.00 per day of 11 hours; others are firemen, boiler tenders, etc. 
Negroes started here in 1902, when 32 wire drawers got free passes 



A Study In Economic History 221 



from Joliet, 111., and a guarantee of $4.00 per day to come here to 
work; 6 of the original 32 still remain. There are 2 churches: A. M. 
E. and Baptist; 1 Negro doctor, 3 barber shops, shaving whites only. 

NEW CASTLE, Lawrence County. Population, 1900, 27,868 
whites and 471 colored. About 800 Negroes in 1907. Negroes chiefly 
porters, butlers, hod carriers, laborers in steel mills; a few plasterers;. 
6 barber shops; 1 pool room, 2 restaurants, 4 churches, 2 Baptist,. 
A. M. E., and A. M. E. Zion; 1 physician; no graduates from high 
school, 1906 or 1907. True Reformers, Odd Fellows and Masons, 
have lodges; some immigration. 

OIL CITY, Venango County. Population, 1900, 13,072 whites 
and 182 colored. Men work in machine works, and with oil com- 
pany at $1.50 to $2.50 per day; some waiters, laborers, bartenders 
and porters. About four-fifths of the people own their homes; 2 
cases of intermarriage; 1 A. M. E. Church. 

OXFORD, Chester County. Population, 1900, 2032. Near Lin- 
coln University. There are 3 ministers, 1 teacher, 12 business men. 
Some immigration and some emigration in past years. Prejudice has 
not increased. "The condition of the Negro here is not so inviting, 
the few in business make no mark in the business world, the several 
are doing fairly well on a small scale." 

PHILADELPHIA, Philadelphia County. Population, 1900, 
1,229,673 whites, 62,613 Negroes. Negro population now (1907) about 
80,000. Negroes lived most largely in the 4th, 7th, 8th, 15th, 22d, 
24th, 27th, 29th, 30th wards, but are generally scattered over the city. 
Voting population was, in 1900, 20,095, °f whom 2190 Negroes were 
illiterate; 416 persons owned houses, of which 198 were encumbered. 
In 1907 there were 802 pieces of property owned, the taxable value 
of which was $2,438,675; Negroes have over $3,000,000 in banks; more 
than 800 persons in business; 40 incorporated businesses; savings 
banks. The chief occupation is domestic service, in which more than 
95 per cent, of the female and 65 per cent, of the males were engaged 
in 1000. There is, however, an increasing number of Negroes in the 
professions, trade and transportation and in manufacturing and 
mechanical pursuits. There are 80 churches, with approximately 
28,000 members; of these 31 are Baptists, 17 are A. M. E. Churches, 
8 Methodist Episcopal Churches, 6 Episcopal Churches, 5 A. M. E. 
Zion, 4 Presbyterian, etc. The schools are mixed. There are about 
50 teachers, teaching Negroes chiefly. Negroes attend school fairly 



228 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



well. There have been graduates from the high and normal schools 
each year during recent years. There are lodges of Masons, Elks, 
Odd Fellows, True Reformers and other secret orders. Negroes are 
emigrating to the city in large numbers, chiefly from Virginia, Mary- 
land, North Carolina; about 150 cases of intermarriage. 

PITTSBURGH (including Allegheny), Allegheny County. Popu- 
lation, 1900, 451,512, of whom Negroes comprised 20,355 (Pittsburgh, 
17,040; Allegheny, 3315). Negroes are chiefly in 8th and 13th wards, 
along Wylie, Bedford and Centre avenues; but are also in every ward 
in the city; the movement of the population has been eastward for 
several years; many of the most prosperous Negroes live in the East 
End of Pittsburgh. In 1900 there were 259 homes owned, of which 
146 were encumbered. Considerably over a million dollars' worth 
of property must be owned today. More than 300 Negroes are in 
business employing about 1000 Negroes. The chief businesses are 
barber shops, restaurants, hotels, excavating and hauling. Negroes 
are largely employed in the steel mills and some have very respon- 
sible places. Negro puddlers are used exclusively in the Park's 
Mills (The Black Diamond); Negro rollers are employed in the Old 
Clark's mills, now owned by the Carnegie Steel Company, of the 
United States Steel Corporation. There are 5 lawyers, more than a 
dozen physicians, dentists and pharmacists, but no teachers. There 
are 175 Negroes in the employ of the Federal, county and city gov- 
ernment, of whom 25 are policemen and about 40 in the post office. 
There are nearly 40 churches, the Baptist having the largest num- 
ber and the largest memberships. Immigration is very heavy, espe- 
cially from Virginia and North Carolina. 

PITTSTON, Luzerne County; about 12,530 whites and 26 col- 
ored in 1900; in 1906 about 150 colored; 1 family owns home. Ne- 
groes chiefly in domestic service and unskilled labor; coachmen and 
waiters; 1 Negro has peanut stand, 2 teamsters, 1 novelty manufac- 
turer, 1 A. M. E. Church, 1 lodge, Odd Fellows; no intermarriage. 

SCRANTON, Lackawanna County. Population, 1900, 101,487 
whites and 539 colored. Principal businesses are teaming, 1 man 
running 12 teams, employing 40 persons; I grocery, 1 hotel of 40 
rooms, 2 barber shops. Men are largely coachmen, messengers, 
waiters, a few coal miners; women chiefly domestics, 2 graduates 
from high school in 1907, 1 teaching in West Virginia, the other in 
a business college; 1 lawyer, 2 churches, A. M. E. and Baptist; lodges, 
Masons, Odd Fellows, Elks, True Reformers. 



A Study In Economic History 229 

STEELTON, Dauphin County, suburb of Harrisburg. Popula- 
tion, 10,575 whites, 1571 colored. This town is built around the stee! 
industry. Negroes are chiefly on Adams and Ridge streets, largely 
segregated. Only a few own homes. The principal businesses are: 
1 general store, 2 small confectionery and notion stores, 1 tobacco 
store, 2 restaurants, 2 pool rooms, 4 express and hauling, 4 barber 
shops, 2 rag and junk dealers, 1 manicurist, 1 undertaker, 2 carpen- 
ters, 1 plasterer, 1 newspaper, 1 building and loan association, 1 
cleaning and pressing establishment. The chief occupation is labor- 
ing in the steel mills, where about 500 Negroes are employed. There 
are some foremen, and one machinist. Women do but little work. 
There are 2 Baptist Churches and 1 A. M. E. Church, having anv 
aggregate membership of about 700 persons; there is one physician, 
a graduate of Lincoln University and Howard University; 5 teachers 
in public schools. The Negro pupils are taught chiefly by Negro 
teachers; no graduates in 1907 from high school. There are three 
Negro policemen, 1 detective, 1 clerk in the Steel Company's store, 
1 member of the City Council; 25 Negroes own property, Negroes 
first entered steel mills as strike breakers. Immigration has been 
very heavy in past ten years, chiefly from Virginia, Maryland and 
North Carolina. 

TYRONE, Blair County. Population, 1900, 115 Negroes, 54 
males and 61 females, and 5731 whites. Negroes are chiefly porters, 
laborers; 5 property holders, 1 farmer owns 70 acres. There are five 
barber shops, one hairdresser, 1 A. M. E. Church at Hollidaysburg; 
a few miles away one Negro does a large confectionery business. 
Hollidaysburg had 116 Negroes in 1900. 

UNIONTOWN, Fayette County. Population in 1900, 6537 
whites, 807 colored; now (1907) about 1200 colored; about 15 home 
owners, averaging $1000 each. Businesses include 2 small grocers, 2 
restaurants, 4 barber shops, 3 of which for whites only; 1 employ- 
ment agency, 4 dressmakers, 2 boarding houses, 1 bricklayer and 
carpenter. Men work principally in the coal mines and coke manu- 
factory. Wages range from $1.15 to $3.50 per day. All hotels have 
Negro waiters. Women chiefly in domestic service. There are 4 
farmers in neighborhood, having from 10 to 40 acres. There are 4 
churches, 2 Baptists, and 1 A. M. E. and 1 A. M. E. Zion; mixed 
schools; no Negro teachers; 1 physician and 1 electrical engineer. 
There were 4 Negro graduates from the high school in 1907 and 2 in 



230 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

1906. About 350 Negro pupils in school. Lodges of Knights of 
Pythias, Odd Fellows, Good Samaritans and True Reformers are in 
the city. Considerable immigration in past two years, from Virginia, 
North Carolina and Maryland; 1 Negro policeman. 

WASHINGTON, Washington County. Population, 1900, 6677 
whites and 993 colored. Estimated Negro population in 1907 was 
1500. Businesses are: 1 grocery, 3 restaurants, 8 barbers, boarding 
houses, 1 contractor, 1 plasterer, 1 tailor, 2 hairdressers, 2 caterers. 
There are 4 churches, A. M. E., A. M. E. Z., Baptist and M. E.; 
1 lawyer, 1 physician, 3 teachers under a white principal. Colored 
children in separate room from whites in public school; 1 high school 
graduate (male), 1907, 2 in 1906; 1 former graduate is a physician 
in Virginia; a few cases of intermarriage; large immigration from 
Virginia and West Virginia. Men work chiefly in tin-plate manufac- 
tory and coal mines, earning from $4.50 to $7.50 per day. About 150 
persons own property, one owning 7 houses, valued at $10,000; an- 
other having property valued at $5000. Church property valued at 
$40,000. People live in good houses, scattered in all parts of the 
city. 

WAYNESBURG, Greene County. Population, 1900, 62,390 
whites and 154 colored. Men work in tin-plate mills for $1.50 to $5 
per day; finishers being able to earn the latter amount; about one- 
third of the Negroes own their homes; but not as much property is 
owned as formerly; one Negroe owns property worth $20,000. There 
are 3 barber shops, 3 teamsters, 1 carpenter, 1 plasterer, 1 A. M. E. 
Church, 1 lodge of Masons; no graduates; no intermarriage. 

WEST CHESTER, Chester County. Population, 1900, 7739 
whites, 1785 colored. Estimated Negro population, 1907, 2000; chief 
occupations of men are common labor, work in brickyards and mills; 
of women, domestic service; wages, $1.25 to $3.00 per day for men; 
$2 to $5 per day for women. 45 Negroes in business, 6 restaurants, 
1 hotel, 8 barbers, 1 real estate dealer, 1 blacksmith, 1 excavating con- 
tractor, 2 shining parlors, 1 colt trainer, 1 contractor, 1 caterer, 2 
hairdressers, 2 boarding houses, 1 grocery, 3 expressmen, 3 fish and 
vegetable dealers, 4 junk dealers, 5 dressmakers, 1 bakery, 1 paper 
hanger. There are also 1 stone mason, 2 bricklayers, 1 engineer, 
sveral fireman and brickmakers. The Negro business people employ 
from 58 to 75 persons. In this hotel 9 are employed regularly. There 
are 6 teachers, 2 post office employes, 1 physician, 8 ministers, 1 po- 



A Study In Economic History 231 



liceman. Property is estimated to be worth $600,000. But little im- 
migration during recent years; not much prejudice. Negro school 
put under Negro principal a year ago. 

WEST NEWTON, Westmoreland County. Population in 1900, 
2467. Negroes now estimated at 200 (1907); 4 property holders; 2 
barber shops, serving only whites; 1 restaurant, 2 engineers. Mining 
is the chief work of the Negroes; a few work in radiator and boiler 
works; a few teamsters, coachmen and hotel workers. Women wash 
and sew chiefly; 1 church (A. M. E.); no lodge. Population is de- 
creasing on account of scarcity of coal. The church membership has 
decreased by 50 per cent. 

WILKES-BARRE, Luzerne County. Population, 1900, 51.036 
white, 685 colored. Negro population in 1907 estimated about 1000. 
No physician, 3 ministers, 2 post office employes, 1 clerk and 1 car- 
rier, 1 Court officer with whites, good; Negroes own between $75.°°° 
and $100,000 of property; one stock clerk in wholesale store, 1 sten- 
ographer with large coal company; majority of men work in hotels, 
clubs and daily unskilled labor; women in domestic service; 23 busi- 
ness men, 6 barber shops, 1 hotel, several express men and general 
haulers, 2 tile setters, 1 weekly newspaper, 2 churches, 1 mission, 1 
lodge of Odd Fellows; but little immigration from South. 

WILLIAMSPORT, Lycoming County. Population, 1900, 27,613 
whites, 1 144 colored; about 40 property holders, one of whom owns 
eight houses. Negroes are not segregated, but scattered over the 
city. Chief businesses: 1 steam laundry, employing 10 persons; 3 res- 
taurants, 4 paper hangers, 4 paper hangers and painters, 2 carpenters, 
3 plasterers, 1 bricklayer, 2 grocery stores, 1 hotel, 3 colored barber 
shops and about a dozen teams. Negroes work in silk braid factory, 
1 foreman; laborers in the lumber mills; waiters, porters, etc. There 
are 4 churches, aggregating 640 members; 1 A. M. E., 1 A. M. E. 
Z. and 2 Baptists; 2 lodges of Odd Fellows, 1 of Masons, 1 of True 
Reformers; 1 policeman, 1 constable, 2 men in post office, 1 letter 
carrier, 1 lawyer; no teachers; mixed schools; 2 graduates from high 
school, 107, and 1 graduate, 1906; 3 cases of intermarriage. 

YORK, York County. Population, 1900, 32,929 whites, 778 col- 
ored. Negroes live scattered over the town, some in quite desirable 
places, with clean brick houses, with small porticos, others in the side 
streets. There are about 50 property holders, some owning one, two, 
three, four and as high as five houses in addition to their homes. 



232 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



Within the last ten years it has become very difficult for colored 
people to rent houses on the better streets; as a result, they are 
forced to buy if they would live in the desirable parts of the city. 
The value of property in York is about $ioo,coo. There are 6 barber 
shops, 3 of which shave whites only; 2 restaurants, i caterer, 3 team- 
sters, 1 hair dresser, 2 boarding houses, 2 dressmakers, 1 inurance 
agent. Negroe are engaged largely in domestic service and unskilled 
labor. Wages for men run from $25 to $40 per month, for women, 
$3 to $3.50 per week. The York Manufacturing Company (iron 
works) has about ico Negroes employed; pay ranged from $1.50 to 
$2.50 per day. In some establishments Negroes hold positions of 
importance. The York Dental Supply Company has a Negro to 
burn artificial teeth; one of the iron companies has a Negro engi- 
neer and a Negro draughtsmen. There are 4 churches, 1 A. M. E., 
with 90 members; 1 A. M. E. Z., with 250 members; 1 Presbyterian, 
40 members, and 1 Baptist. There were 136 Negroes in public 
school, June, 1507, and 2 in business college. There were 4 teachers 
and 1 physician. Negro children go to a separate primary school. 
Nine Negroes have graduated from high school in past ten years; 
one is a physician, another a Presbyterian minister, another a grad- 
uate in law, now in the Government service in Chicago; 1 died while 
studying medicine; 2 are teachers, 1 a barber, 1 in training school 
for teachers and 2 are at home. There have been Negro teachers in 
the schools for a half century. There has been immigration during 
the past ten years, chiefly from Virginia, Maryland and North Caro- 
lina, but this has been very nearly balanced by emigration to Har- 
risburg and larger cities. The Negroes are optimistic, and report 
no ill-feeling among them and whites. 



«^ 



£ 



A Study In Economic History 233 



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A Study In Economic History 239 



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ulties and Lierature of Negroes, Followed by an Account of 15 
Negroes and Mulattoes Distinguished in Science, Art and Litera- 
ture. Brooklyn, 1810. 

GRIMKE, A. H— Right on the Scaffold of the Martyrs of 1822. 
Occasional paper No. 7 of the American Negro Academy, Wash- 
ington, 1901. 

GUTHRIE, JAMES M.— Camp Fires of the Afro-Americans, Phila- 
delphia, 1899. 

HAMMOND, M. B.— The Cotton Industry, 1897, McMillan. 

HAMPTON NEGRO CONFERENCE Reports, Hampton Insti- 
tute, Va. 

HARPER, F. E. W— Forest Leaves, Baltimore, 1855. 

HARPER, F. E. W.-'-Iola Leroy: A Novel. Third Edition, Phila., 
1892. 280 pp. 

HARPER, F. E. W.— Miscellaneous Poems, Boston, 1854. 



238 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



DU BOIS, W. E. B.— The Negroes of Farmville, Va. (U. S. Bureau 
of Labor Bulletin, January, 1898). 

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT Statistics of the Colored 
People of Philadelphia (MS. in Library of Historical Associa- 
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American Journal of Medical Sciences, July, 1848. 

EDWARDS, BRYAN— History of the West Indies. 
ELY — The Labor Movement in America. 

EMERSON, DR. E. O.— Vital Statistics of Philadelphia (in America 
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EXPULSION OF FREE NEGROES— Vol. 2—1860. 

ECONOMIC POSITION of the American Negro, The— Reprinted 
from Papers and Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting 
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FERRIS, BENJ.— History of the Original Settlement on the Dela- 
ware, etc. Wilmington, 1846. 

FIVE YEARS' ABSTRACT of the Transactions of the Pennsyl- 
vania Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery. 
Phila., 1853. 

FLEMING, W. L. — Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, 1905, 
McMillan. 

FORTUNE, T. T.— Black and White. 1884, Fords, Howard and Hurl- 
bert. 

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN— An Essay on the African Slave Trade, 
Phila., 1790. 

FREEDMAN'S SAVING BANK— Bankers' Magazine. 

FREEDMAN'S SAVING BANK— Old and New. 

FRIENDS— A Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the 
Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends Against Slavery 
and the Slave Trade. Philadelphia, 1843. 

FRIENDS— A Brief Sektch of the School for Black People and 
Their Descendants, Established by the Religious Society of 
Friends in 1770. Philadelphia, 1867. 



A Study In Economic History 239 



FRIENDS— Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testi- 
mony of Friends Against Slavery, 1671-1787. Phila., 1843. 

FRIENDS— Germantown Friends Protest Against Slavery, 1868. 
(Facsimile copy.) In Adger Collection, Home for Aged and In- 
firm Colored Persons, Phila., 1880. 

FRIENDS— The Appeal of the Religious Society of Friends in 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc., on Behalf of the Colored Races. 
Phila., 1858. 

GAINES, W. J.— African Methodism in the South. Atlanta, 1890. 

GARNETT, HENRY HIGHLAND— The Past and Present Condi- 
tion and the Destiny of the Colored Race. Troy, 1848. 20 pp. 

GARNER, J. A.— History of the Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1901, 
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GOODWIN, M. B— History of Schools for the Colored Population 
in the District of Columbia. U. S. Bureau of Education. Special 
Reports on District of Columbia for 1869. pp. 199-300. 

GOODELL, WM.— America's Slave Code, New York, 1853. 

GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA on Slavery, 1855. 

GREGOIREO— Inquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Fac- 
ulties and Lierature of Negroes, Followed by an Account of 15 
Negroes and Mulattoes Distinguished in Science, Art and Litera- 
ture. Brooklyn, 1810. 

GRIMKE, A. H— Right on the Scaffold of the Martyrs of 1822. 
Occasional paper No. 7 of the American Negro Academy, Wash- 
ington, 1901. 

GUTHRIE, JAMES M.— Camp Fires of the Afro-Americans, Phila- 
delphia, 1899. 
HAMMOND, M. B.— The Cotton Industry, 1897, McMillan. 

HAMPTON NEGRO CONFERENCE Reports, Hampton Insti- 
tute, Va. 
HARPER, F. E. W— Forest Leaves, Baltimore, 1855. 

HARPER, F. E. W.-'-IoIa Leroy: A Novel. Third Edition, Phila., 

1892. 280 pp. 
HARPER, F. E. W. — Miscellaneous Poems, Boston, 1854. 



240 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

HAZARD. SAMUEL— The Register of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 
1828-36. 

HERBERT, H. A.— (Ed) Why the Solid South? 1890, Woodward 
(Baltimore). 

HICKOK. CHAS. T.— The Negro in Ohio. 1802-1870. A thesis, 
etc. 182 pp. Cleveland, 1896. 

HISTORY of the Insurance Company of North America, With the 
Account of the African Insurance Co., Organized in Phila., 1810. 

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY. 

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 

HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA HALL, Which Was Destroyed 
by a Mob on the 17th of May, 1838. Phila., 1838. 

HISTORY OF THE YELLOW FEVER in Philadelphia, in 1797. 
2d Phila., 1798. 

HOFFMAN, F. L — Race Traits and Tendencies of the American 
Negro, 1896, McMillan. 

HOWARD, JAS. H. W.— Bond and Free, Harrisburg, 1836. 

HOWARD, JAS. H. W— Pennsylvania at the National Business 
League, Harrisburg, 1908. 

HOWARD, O. O — Autobiography. 2 vols. N. Y., 1907. 

HULL HOUSE Maps and Papers, New York, 1S95. 

HURD, J. C. — Topics of Jurisprudence Connected With Freedmen; 
Inquiry into the Conditions of the Negro in the United States. 
By an American. Philadelphia, 1839. 

JANNEY, SAMUEL M— History of the Religious Society of 
Friends, Philadelphia, 1859-67. 

JAY, WILLIAM — Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the 
American Colonization Society and American Anti-Slavery Soci- 
eties, 6th Ed. New York, 1838. 

JONES, ABSALOM— A Thanksgiving Sermon— On Account of the 
Abolition of the African Slave Trade, etc. Phila., 1808. (Pam.) 

JONES, ROBT.— Fifty Years in the Lombard Street Central Presby- 
terian Church. Philadelphia, 1894. 



A Study In Economic History 241 

JONES — The Religious Instructions of Negroes in the United States, 
by Chas. Jones, Savannah, 1842. 

JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES of Penn- 
sylvania, from Nov. 28, 1876-Oct. 2, 1781. Philadelphia, 1782. 

JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE, Pennsylvania, 1862-1801. 

JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE, Pennsylvania, 1802. 

JOURNAL OF THE SENATE, Pennsylvania, 1802. 

JOURNAL OF THE SENATE, Pennsylvania, 1790-1802. 

JUPITER HAMMOND'S ADDRESS to the Negroes in the State 
of New York. Philadelphia, 1787. 

KELSEY, CARL— The Negro Farmer. 

LAIDLAW, WALTER— (Ed) The Federation of Churches and 
Christian Workers in New York City. First and Second Socio- 
logical Canvassers. New York, 1896-1897. 

LAWS OF THE COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania from Octo- 
ber 14, 1700, to March 20, 1810. Philadelphia, 1810. 

LAY, BENJ.— Against Keeping Slaves. 
LAY, BENJ. — Slave Keepers, Apostates. 

LOVE, E. K. — History of the First African Baptist Church, Savan- 
nah, 1889. 

LIVERMORE, GEO.— Historical Research Respecting the Opin- 
ions of the Founders of the Republic, Boston, 1862. 

LYTLE, M. S— History of Huntingdon County, Penna. 

McDOUGALL M. J.— Fugitive Slaves. 

McKNIGHT— History of Jefferson County, Penna. 

MATTHEWS, HARVEY— An Account of the Malignant Fever Prev- 
alent in Philadelphia, etc. 4th edition. Phila., 1793. 

MAYO, SMITH R.— Statistics and Sociology, New York, 1896. 

MEMOIRS — Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1, 405. 

MERRIMAN, G. S.— The Negro and the Nation, 1906, Henry Holt 
Co. 

18 



242 The Negro In Pennsylvania 

MINUTES of the American Moral Reform Society, Phila., 1836. 

MINUTES of the First Annua] Convention of the People of Color, 
Philadelphia, 1831. (Pam.) 

MINUTES of the Second Convention of the Free People of Color, 
Philadelphia, 1832. 

MINUTES of the Fourth Convention of the Free People of Color, 

1834. 
MINUTES of the Fifth Convention of Free People of Color, Phila., 

1835- 
MINUTES of the Philadelphia Councils Committee, Appointed Sept. 

14, 1793, to Alleviate the Suffering, etc. 

MINUTES of the Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates from 
the Abolition Societies, etc., Philadelphia, Jan. 1st to 7th, 1794. 

MINUTES of the Proceedings of the Special Meeting of the Fif- 
teenth American Convention for the Promoting of the Abolition 
of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race. 
Philadelphia, Dec. io-i5th, 1818. 
The same, the Eighteenth Session, Oct. 7, 1823. 
The same, the Nineteenth Session, Oct. 4, 1825. 
The same, the Twentieth Session, 1828. 

MINUTES of the Convention of Pennsylvania, Which Commenced 
Nov. 24, 1789, for the Purpose of Reviewing, Altering and Amend- 
ing the Constitution of This State. Phila., 1789-1790. 

MITCHELL, J. T., & FLANDERS, HENRY, Commissioners— The 
Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, Compiled 
Under the Authority of the Act of May 19, 1887. 

MONTGOMERY, M. L.— Handbook of Berks County, 1762-1883. 

MOORE, J. J.— History of the A. M. E. Z. Church. York, Pa., 1880. 

MOORE — Slavery in Massachusetts. 

MOSSELL, N. F. MRS.— Forerunners of the Afro-American Coun- 
cil, Howard Magazine, Washington, April, 1900. 

MOSSELL, MRS. N. F.— The Work of Afro-American Women, 
Philadelphia, 1894. 178 pp. 



A Study In Economic History 243 



MOTT, A.— Biography of Colored People, Philadelphia. (Pam. 
Phila. Library Company.) 

MURPHY, E. G.— The Present South, 1904, McMillan. 

NARRATIVES of the Proceedings of the Black People During the 
Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia in the Year 1793. By Absa- 
lom Jones and Richard Allen. 

NEEDHAM, J. F— Journal of Proceedings of the 48th General Meet- 
ing of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, Phila., 1907. 

NEEDLES, EDW.-An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania So- 
ciety for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Philadelphia, 1848. 

NEEDLES, EDW. — Ten Years' Progress, or a Comparison of the 
State and Condition of the Colored People in the City and Coun- 
ty of Philadelphia from 1837 to 1847. Philadelphia, 1849. 

NELL, WILLIAM C— Services of Colored Americans in the Wars 
of 1776 and 1812. Reprinted, Philadelphia, 1894. 

NELL, W. C— The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, 
etc. Boston, 1855. 

NICKOLLS, R. B.— A Letter to the Treasurer of the Abolition So- 
ciety, London, 1788. 

OBSERVATIONS ON ENSLAVING. Germantown, 1760. 

OBSERVATIONS ON ENSLAVING NEGROES. Germantown. 
Printed by C. Sower, 1759. 

OLEARY, MATTHEW— Observations on Rush's Inquiry into the 
Origin of the Late Epidemic Fever in Philadelphia. Phila., 1793. 

PAYNE, DANIEL A.— History of the A. M. E. Church, Nashville, 
1891. 

PEARCE, EDW. LILLIE— The Negroes at Port Royal; Report to 
S. B. Chase, Secretary of Treasury, Boston, 1862. 36 pp. 

PENN, I. G. AND J. W. E. BOWEN, Editors— The United Negro, 
His Problems and His Progress. Containing the Addresses and 
Proceedings of the Negro Young People's Congress (Christian 
and Educational), held Aug. 6-11, 1902. Atlanta, 1902. 

PENNSYLVANIA COLONIAL RECORD, Philadelphia. 



244 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



PENNSYLVANIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY: Charter to William 
Penn and Laws of Province, 1682-1700. 

PETERS, RICHARD— Fugitive Slave Case of Edward Prigg vs. 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. January, 1842. 

PHILADELPHIA IN CARTOON. 

PHILADELPHIA IN 1824. 

PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS— Dailies, Bulletin (evening), 
Inquirer, North American, Press, Public Ledger, Record, Tele- 
graph (evening), Times (evening). 

PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS— Colored, The Christian Ban- 
ner, The Courant, The Philadelphia Tribune, The Pilot, McGirt's 
Magazine (monthly), The A. M. E. Review (quarterly), The Chris- 
tian Recorder. 

PICKARD, MRS. KATE E. R— "Kidnaped and Ransomed: Peter 
Still and His Wife, 'Vina.' "—Syracuse, 1856. 

PIERCE, P. S.— The Freedmen's Bureau, 1904. State University of 
Iowa. 

PLATT, O. H. — Negro Governors. In papers of the New Haven 
Colony Historical Society. Vol. 6. New Haven, 1900. 

PROCEEDINGS OF CONVENTION of Colored Freedmen of 
Pennsylvania, Phila. (Pam.) 

PROCEEDINGS of the National Negro Business League, Annually, 
1900-07. 

PROUD, ROBT.— History of Penna., 1681-1742. 

PURVIS, ROBT.— Remarks on the Life and Character of James 
Forten. (Pam.) 

RATZEL, F— History of Mankind. 3 vols., New York, 1904. 

RELATION OF STATE to Colored Population. Vol. n, 1832. 

REPORTS— Bureau of Charities; Bureau of Health, Phila. Annual 
Reports. The Children's Aid Society. 

REPORT— Annual, of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 
Washington. 

REPORTS— Eastern Penitentiary. 



A Study In Economic History 245 

REPORTS— Frederick Douglass Hospital, Phila. 

REPORTS of the Commissioner Appointed for the Purpose of Se- 
curing to Colored People in Philadelphia the Rights to the Use 
of the Street Cars, Phila. (1865, Pam.) 

REPORT of the Committee on the Comparative Health, Mortal- 
ity, Length of Sentences, etc., of White and Colored Convicts. 
Phila., 1849. 

REPORT of the Committee of Senate Upon the Relations Between 
Labor and Capital, and Testimony Taken by the Committee. 5 
vols. Washington, 1885. 

REPORT of Major General O. O. Howard, Commissioner, Bureau 
of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, etc. 30 pp. Wash- 
ington, 1869. 

REPORT of the U. S. Industrial Commission, Vol. 14 

REPORTS of the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons. 

REPORTS of the Philadelphia Association for the Protection of 
Colored Women. 

REPORTS of the Starr Center (Social Settlement). 

REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN NEGROES— The Negro Prob- 
lem, 1903. Jos. Pott & Co. 

RICHARD ALLEN (First Bishop of A. M. E. Church)— The Life, 
Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, 
etc. Written by himself. Phila., 1833. 

RICHARD ALLEN AND JACOB TAPSICO— The Doctrine and 
Discipline of the A. M. E. Church. Phila., 1819. 

RIIS, JACOB— The Making of an American. McMillan. 

RUPP, I. DANIEL— History of Lancaster County. Lancaster, 1844. 

RUPP, I. DANIEL— History of Berks and Lebanon Counties, 1844. 

SANDIFORD, RALPH— Observations on Negro Slavery. 

SAUNDERS, PRINCE— A Memoir; Presented to the American 
Convention for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery. Phila., 
1818. 

SECESSION PAMPHLETS— Washington and Jackson on Negro 
Soldiers, Vol 10. 



248 The Negro In Pennsylvania 



THOMAS, ALLEN CLAPP— The Attitude of the Society of Friends 
Toward Slavery, etc. (Reprinted from Vol. 8, American Society 
of Church History, New York, 1897.) 

THOMAS, W. H.— The American Negro, 1901, McMillan. 

TILLINGHAST, J. A.— The Negro in Africa and America, 1002, 

McMillan. 

TRADES OF THE COLORED PEOPLE, Phila., 1838. 

NATIONAL CONVENTION OF COLORED MEN and Their 
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NATIONAL CONVENTION OF COLORED MEN. Syracuse, 
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NATIONAL CONVENTION OF COLORED MEN in America, 
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U. S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; Select References. 

VARIOUS AUTHORS— From Servitude to Service, 1905. Uni- 
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VASS, S. N. — Progress of the Negro Race, Raleigh, N. C, 1906. 
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VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT Among the Negroes. R. L. Smith, 
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WASHINGTON, B. T.— The Future of the American Negro, 1897. 
Small, Maynard & Co. 



A Study In Economic History 249 

WASHINGTON, B. T.— Tuskegee and Its People, 1905, Appleton's. 

WASHINGTON, B. T— Up From Slavery, 1901, Doubleday, Page 
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WASHINGTON, B. T— Working With the Hands, Doubleday, Page 

& Co. 
WASHINGTON, GEORGE— On Colored Troops. 

WATSON, JNO.F.— Annals of Philadelphia, Phila., 1830. 

WAYMAN, A. W — My Recollections of A. M. E. Ministers, Phila., 
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WEBSTER, NOAH— Effect of Slavery on Morals and Industry, 
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WESCOTT, THOMPSON— Persons Who Took the Oath of Alle- 
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WHEATLEY, PHYLLIS— Poems on Various Subjects, Religious 
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WHITE, WM. S— The African Preacher, Phila., 1849. 

WfLLjIAMS, GEO. W— History of the Negro Race in America 
from i6r9-i88o. New York, 1883. 

WILLSON, JOSEPH— Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored 
Society in Philadelphia. Phila., 1841. 

WILLSON, JOSEPH T— The Black Phalanx. Hartford, 1889. 

\\ OOLMAN, JOHN— Considerations on Keeping Negroes, Phila., 

1762. 
"WORKMAN SOUTHERN," Hampton, Va. 

WRIGHT, CARROLL D.— Slams of Great Cities; Seventh Special 
Report of the United States Department of Labor. Washington, 

i°94- 
WRIGHT, R. R., JR.— Housing and Sanitation in Relation to Mor- 
tality of Negroes in Hampton Bulletin. Vol. 1, No. 3. Sept., 
1893. Also Southern Workman, Sept., 1906. 

WRIGHT, R. R., JR.— Article, Mortality of Negroes in Cities. At- 
lanta University Publications. The Health and Hygiene of Negroes, 
1906. 



250 



The Negro In Pennsylvania 



WRIGHT, K. R., JR.— Migration of Negroes, in Annals of the Academy 
of Political and Social Science, May, 1906. 

WRIGHT, R. R., JR.— Negro Rural Communities in Indiana, in 
Southern Workman. March, [908. 

WRIGHT, R. R.. JR.— "Social Work and [nfluence of the Negro 
Church:" in Annals of Academy of Political and Social Science, 
Nov.. 1007. 

WRIGHT, R. R., JR.— "The Newspapers and the Negroes;'' Occa- 
sional paper No. 20 of Starr Center, Oct., 1907. Reprinted in 
McGirt's Magazine. Nov., 1907, and in the A. M. E. Review, 
Jan., 1908 

WRIGHT. R. R.. JR- — Philadelphia Colored Directory, 1908. 




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